Observations
by sQuIsHeDbRoCcOlLi
Summary: a compilation of drabbles based on some things I noticed in the series...some things so obvious i bet everyone noticed and some so obscure i had to squint at the page to figure it out.
1. 一番

**PROLOGUE**

yeah...this is a compilation of observations i made (ok, i am STILL MAKING) throughout the entire series...some of them dead obvious and some of them i bet you've never noticed before. so...being the bored and random me, i created a story for each observation. enjoy! (and please review, i love replying reviews, but if you don't wanna be replied, then just say so and i won't.)

so...chapter 1.

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: **Yamamoto, Ukitake, Kyouraku  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 288  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)

**Observation 1.**

It NEVER rains in seireitei. I dunno if you've ever noticed it, but as far as I've gotten, I don't remember it raining in seireitei.

- - - - - - -

Things must be going dandy for a certain Yamamoto Shigekuni Genryuusai. After all, it never rained. Not before, anyway. He could happily use his zanpakutou at leisure at any time he wanted, as seeing it would never be extinguished due to weather problems.

'Ryuujin Jakka!'

The ancient staff disintegrated into a sword and flames erupted around the wasteland of a ground. The soutaichou looked pleased with the rapid consumption of oxygen and output of carbon dioxide.

Standing aside coughing from the air pollution, Kyouraku and Ukitake had their swords drawn and released.

'So…we're gonna fight old Yama-jii?'

'Looks like he's mad enough to go fight us.'

'Say, what's that?'

'What's what?'

'That.'

Kyouraku motioned for his long-time friend to look up. Dark clouds flooded the once-blue sky, darkening the area, bringing the temperature down.

'Hmm. I wonder.'

Noticing his elite students looking up at the sky like a pair of doofuses, Yamamoto decided the sky was, for once, worth looking at.

'What's that?' he croaked.

A flash of static electricity flashed through the clouds; a loud, rumbling noise penetrated the odd silence.

Water poured down.

The once-strong flames died down with a satisfying sizzling noise, leaving only black char marks on the ground. Looking stunned, the wielder of Ryuujin Jakka stared at the sky as though he had been betrayed by his best friend. Then, he took a glance at his gleeful students.

'Jya ne! Yama-jii!'

And they ran off, leaving the soutaichou to fume over his inability to participate in combat during a thunderstorm, the existence of which they discovered only a few seconds ago. It seemed the pair had taken full advantage of the circumstances and made a run for it while they weren't barbecued pork.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

if you made any observations you find interesting, you can tell me! then i can make a story out of it too...  
OH and please tell me how to improve! (i seriously think my English can be improved)


	2. 二番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: **all the taichous  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count: **946  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)

Observation 2.

In rooms and buildings and stuff (in seireitei), the shinigami pad around in their tabi (socks with the split at the toe so they can wear the sandals) but when they head out onto ground like soukyoku hill the sandals magically appear. (See Aizen and Ichimaru in book 20).

- - - - - -

The 12 taichous stood in two neat rows in front of the soutaichou, pretending to be listening to his gravel. As he croaked on, gradually more and more of the minimal population in the room nodded in an instinctive action to promptly fall asleep.

At last, the most desired action and words of the entire taichous' meeting were spoken. The staff was banged ceremoniously on the floor and the two magical words were croaked: 'meeting dismissed.'

A scramble was made for the small door, where as usual, an argument broke out.

'HEY!! That's my sandal!'

'Oh really? And how can you tell it's not MY sandal?'

'I…uh…well…'

'SEE? YOU CAN'T TELL AT ALL!!'

'I CAN TOO!! MY sandal happens to have a little tear at the heel there…somewhere there…'

Kenpachi flipped the sandal in his hand over from side to side, trying desperately to prove that the sandal belonged to him.

'My sandals don't match.' A voice from the edge of the crowd commented. In his hands Kurotsuchi Mayuri held an extremely small sandal and a sandal of the other extreme: really big. Immediately a hand and a paw lashed out and snatched their respective sandal. Komamura and Hitsugaya each inspected the sandal, trying to ensure they had taken the right sandal.

'This, is NOT my sandal.' Byakuya held a tattered sandal an arm's length away from his face.

'WAIT is that my sandal?' Kenpachi peered at the tattered sandal which Byakuya held by one straw strap. 'Hmm…maybe not.'

'AACK IT'S NOT MY SANDAL!!' Hitsugaya released the sandal he snatched from Mayuri as though acidic. A small black spot could be seen on the underside.

'THAT'S MY SANDAL!!' Soifon made a grab for the small sandal.

'Eh, Soifon-taichou, you don't wear sandals. You wear those slip-on thingies right?' Ukitake was violently brandishing a small pair of black shoes.

'Then…whose sandals are these?'

Ichimaru Gin turned around. 'Ne, Jyuuban-taichou-san…I think it's YOUR sandal.'

'IT'S NOT! My sandal does NOT have a suspicious black SPOT!'

'Maybe someone stepped on it.'

'Mm.'

Meanwhile, Byakuya had abandoned the half-chewed sandal and proceeded to discover a sandal in pristine condition on the floor. He picked it up and inspected it for all of five seconds before it was snatched away from him by a suspecting Aizen. 'Ahem. That is MY sandal.'

Aizen returned him the icy look. 'And how do you know?'

'I keep mine in pristine condition, spotless and clean.'

'And what if I do as well, and claim that this is my sandal?'

'Oh really?'

'Really.'

The pair proceeded to have a stare-down.

Tousen Kaname fumbled around on the floor, trying to find his sandals where he put them before the meeting. Obviously they weren't there as seeing how everyone was rapidly picking up, inspecting, and throwing over their shoulders random sandals.

'Komamura-san.'

'Uh…yeah?'

'Could you help me get my sandals? I can't seem to find them.'

'Uh…'

'…Neither can I'

'Kyouraku Shunsui.'

'Yeah?'

'I just wanted to say…gimme back my sandal.'

Kyouraku stared at the sandal he was strapping onto his left foot.

'I thought this one's mine?'

'No it's not.'

'And how can you tell?'

'It has my name on it. On the underside.'

'Oh really?' Kyouraku ripped the sandal off his foot and inspected the underside. 'I don't SEE anyone's name, let alone YOURS, Kenpachi.'

A triumphant voice penetrated the chaos. 'YESS I found my right sandal!'

Ukitake was immediately taken in for questioning.

'How d'you know that's your sandal?'

'Are you sure it's yours?'

'Yes, it's mine. It has my BLOOD on the heel, so go away, okay?' and he proceeded to put it on while the rest of the Gotei 13 stared in disgust at the heel of his sandal.

'How d'you know it's your blood?'

'How d'you know it's NOT my blood?'

This stunned Mayuri into silence.

Sparked on by the stroke of genius shown by his friend, Kyouraku then bent down and smelt every single sandal, picking up the ones that smelt particularly strongly of sake. (A/N: I know this sounds kinda gross). Meanwhile, the rest of the Gotei 13 did what they did just a few seconds ago. They scowled in disgust.

With the remaining sandals, Komamura picked the only sandal that matched the one in his hand, as did Hitsugaya. As they put them on, they too were barrelled with questions.

'Is that my sandal?'

'No.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes.'

'REALLY SURE??'

'Just go away already.'

'THEN WHICH ONE'S MY SANDAL??'

Three sandals in perfect condition had been found. Having claimed one each, Aizen and Byakuya were arguing over the remaining one. Unohana had given up and went back to her division quarters to retrieve an extra pair of sandals, deciding to return in the evening to collect the last remaining pair of sandals.

Inside the room, Yamamoto's temper was rising.

'GO AWAY! AND SHUT UP!!' the croaky voice, at an alarmingly loud volume, blasted out of the doors of the room.

The twelve figures of authority each grabbed two random sandals and ran to the nearest building. Once there, they sat down, threw down all the sandals and resumed their argument/brawl. Having found what they presumed to be their own footwear and also not under suspicion of any of their other colleagues, Soifon, Komamura and Hitsugaya went off.

In the evening, when Unohana went back to retrieve her sandals, she found them torn and scruffy, giving her the feeling that they had been violently fought over. When she returned and read the medical reports for the day, she also found that almost every single taichou had reported into her division that afternoon for treatment of minor injuries and bruises.  
- - - - - - - - - - -

yeah! hoped you enjoyed that! i had fun writing it, anyway. anyone noticed anything i didn't? you can tell me...


	3. 三番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: **all the taichous (again, i know, but i love messing with them)  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 714  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)

Observation 3.

Yamamoto makes the stupidest decisions. (See SS arc and DiamondDust Rebellion)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

'Ahem. I declare this the start of taichous' meeting no.17 for today. Silence; shut up; zip your mouth.'

The twelve taichous reluctantly complied. Eventually (okay, two seconds later), someone said, 'uh, yes?'

'Oh, I know. Yama-jii's gonna want another theatre performance. He's gonna croak:"So-And-So has committed a heinous crime. Therefore, we MUST take action, we MUST activate the soukyoku. A crime like this is UNFORGIVABLE. Blablabla…'

'I tell you, that man is paranoid. People disappear from his presence under suspicious conditions and then he goes into paranoid-mode, going "So-And-So has betrayed us by doing So-And-So illegal act"; this illegal act I bet he came up with on the spot to satisfy his longing to execute someone on a regular basis.'

Heads nodded in agreement.

Ichimaru, the ever-enthusiastic-sadist (A/N: sorry, Gin-fans, but my descriptions stay rather vivid and sceptical), said in the voice that sent shivers down everyone's back except his own, 'so, who d'ya think it is THIS time?'

Aizen answered in a calm voice, 'let's bet.'

'AWWWRIGHT!! I KNEW someone would come up with that idea! I bet this time it's that shifty-eyed, silver-haired, snake-lookalike creature! I bet……1 000 yen!!' (A/N: on a very vague scale that's about 10 American dollars. I'm not American but I found it easier to convert this way…) Kenpachi roared as he pointed an accusatory finger Gyakuten Saiban style at Ichimaru.

'Zaraki-san, hidoi, ne…' the accused was, obviously, not in a good mood.

'Objection.' (OMG am I going Gyakuten Saiban?? Doesn't help that I just played it this afternoon…) Soifon had different ideas about the next execution. 'I bet it's going to be Madarame-sanseki for brandishing a pole around while drunk.'

Kenpachi, protective of his entire division, was not happy either. 'Oh really? Then I say it's Oomaeda, held on trial for his life for extensive contribution to global warming by throwing away many plastic artefacts such as bags of crackers, not to mention land pollution.'

'Ahem. I feel it should be Ukitake.' Heads swivelled around to look at Byakuya, whose royal noble pale green long ridiculous-looking strangulation weapon of a neck wrap seemed to have recently acquired a few new red spots.

'I'm SORRY!! I said it already! I'm reallyreallyreallyreally sorry, okay? I don't cough blood on purpose, you know.'

'I actually, for once, agree with Kuchiki.' Heads swivelled around and down to look at the ever-vertically-challenged, growth hormones-deprived Hitsugaya.

'For once…?' Byakuya's eyes narrowed significantly.

'He has this evil ploy to destroy my existence with the over-consumption of titbits and sweets. He will be charged with attempted murder.'

The accused looked torn and hurt.

Aizen pointed a finger (not the middle one) at Kyouraku. 'I think he's next, for constantly slacking off work and over-consumption of alcohol.'

Kyouraku had a counter-example. (A/N: sorry, guys, I was studying for my exams, these classroom terms keep slipping in). 'And what about Matsumoto?'

He pointed an accusing finger at the small figure next to him, which shouted up, 'WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO WITH IT??'

The sound of a decaying, sorry excuse for a staff hitting the floor was heard. The twelve heads swivelled around yet again, this time to look at Yamamoto. 'Ahem. This meeting has nothing to do with anything of that sort.'

'Well, that's a first.' Aizen elbowed Komamura in the thigh, telling him to shut up and listen. Komamura then elbowed Aizen back in the face, telling him to speak for himself.

'Ahem. The topic of this meeting is of great importance. I find that you, as taichous, make too much noise. Especially in my division quarters when we're having a meeting. We need solutions. I find that you lot are showing impudence towards superiority. We need solutions for that too.'

'Sir, we could make a poster!'

'How 'bout we get extra sake to keep us drunk and quiet?'

'I can propose this problem to the Shinigami Women's Association.'

'You could tell the fukutaichous to help solve the problem rather than us.'

'I could lecture everyone about JUSTICE!!'

'Eh, no, Tousen.'

'I can invent a machine that makes you ignorant towards our behaviour, sir!'

'Sir, why don't you just retire?'

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

yeah! chapter 3 is up! (WAAAAAY before I expected to be done with it) thanks goes to MattsyKun TheEpicFailAlchemist for reviewing and contributing this chapter! (okay, she contributed the OBSERVATION but if she didn't then there wouldn't be a story, would there?)  
any more observations, anyone?


	4. 四番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: **Ichimaru, Kira, Hinamori, Renji  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 380  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)

Observation 4.

Ichimaru's eyes keep changin colour. red in the anime, green in book 20 and yellow in the DS cartridge (Bleach 2nd Kokui Hirameku Requiem)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

'Ichimaru-taichou.'

'Nani, Izuru?'

'Uh, I was wondering, why you took so long to come out today…'

'Oh, nothing…personal matters…'

'Taichou?'

'What?'

'I was thinking…your eyes look different today.'

'In what way?'

'I don't know…it just looks…different.'

Later that day, Kira discussed his woes about his taichou and how he feared he was getting an eye infection with his long-time friends Hinamori and Renji.

'Kira-kun, I think you're just being paranoid. I'm sure Ichimaru-taichou is okay…'

Renji spoke with his mouth full of something he was eating. 'Yeah…maybe you've been hallucinating or somethin'…you never know…like, maybe you ain't got enough sleep or somethin' like that…'

'But I was sure he looked different! And I don't know why!!' despair was clearly written all over his face.

'Ne, ne, Kira-kun, why don't we just search for Ichimaru-taichou, and then we can show you there's nothing wrong?'

All the while, Ichimaru had been sneezing violently.

When they finally found him, Renji went up and peered at the third division's taichou's face. At first, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it, until Renji, without warning, sprang back with a yelp, trembling on the floor as he did so.

Obviously shocked, Hinamori went up to help her distressed friend. 'Abarai-kun, what's wrong?' Renji pointed a shaky finger at Ichimaru, whom Hinamori decided she would peer at.

She, too, leapt back with a shriek, pointing a shaky finger at Ichimaru. 'Ichimaru….taichou….you…uh…something's happened to your eyes! One…one's red and the other's…yellow! What happened?'

Ichimaru retrieved a pocket mirror from his shihakushou, staring into it. Having found the problem with his facial features, in particular the eyes, he stashed the mirror back into his shihakushou and took a small container of fluid out. He opened it and picked a small coloured circle while the fukutaichous stared at him, mouths agape. He reached his pointer to his eye and, to the horror of the fukutaichous, plucked a red circle off it, revealing a green iris. Gently, he placed the small artefact into his container of liquid and placed the yellow disc into the eye he removed the red disc from. Having completed the mysterious procedure, he kept the container of fluid back into his shihakushou.

Noticing the fukutaichous' stunned looks, he said, 'it's called a contact lens, stupids.'  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

thanks to abilityPOINT for the observation! and yeah, I checked my game, and he DOES have yellow eyes! it looks really creepy...i took a screenshot of it.


	5. 五番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: ********all the taichous and fukutaichous, Kiyone, Sentarou**  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 1746  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)

Observation 5

Pretty much everyone looks like the use of hairgel is mandatory with exceptions of Ikkaku and Ukitake.

- - - - - - - - -

It is five in the morning, going by seireitei time, provided they even HAD a time system.

All of seireitei was up.

No, they were not doing taichi, and they were not enjoying the morning air either. In fact, this was a regular routine.

--

**First Division**

The dignified Yamamoto stood outside the first division toilets, battering on the door. 'CHOUJIROU!! Come out and lemme use the toilet!'

A muffled voice from the toilet wafted out. 'But taichou, I'm not done yet!'

Yamamoto, his beard in an ultimate mess, threw himself against the toilet door, pleading his fukutaichou to let him in.

'But sir! I'm not done yet! I'm really sorry, I'm not done yet! Why don't you go back to sleep first?'

Yamamoto straightened out his beard with his fingers only to find that it sprung back into its original condition the moment he let go of it. 'CHOUJIROU! Come out before I burn the toilet door!' having said what he said, Yamamoto took hold of his ominous staff and hit it upon the floor.

Choujirou panicked and bolted out the door, pausing only to grab his tub of hair gel off the sink. Yamamoto then grabbed HIS tub of hair gel and barged into the toilet, only to have his entire division battering on the door five seconds later.

--

**Second Division**

'Soifon-taichou, what are you doing?'

'Doing my hair. Go away, Oomaeda.'

'Um, taichou, I need to use the bathroom.'

'Come back when I'm done.'

'And when will that be?'

'About…six?'

'TAICHOUUUUU!! I can't possibly stand this for an hour!'

In the toilet, Soifon braided her hair while excruciatingly gelling each strand in place before wrapping it in cloth and hanging her golden rings. Her fringe had already been gelled to the side.

Outside the toilet, Oomaeda stood, trying not to whimper as what little hair he had fell in a mess around his head. In his hand he held a tub of hair gel.

--

**Third Division**

As Ichimaru tried to pull his fringe into the triangle shape it was usually in, he heard a knock on the door, followed by a soft call, 'taichou.'

'Yare, yare, Izuru, can't 'cha wait till I'm done?'

'Sir. I'm sure there's space. Can't I do it at the same time? That way, we would be ready for the day much faster.'

A click was heard as the toilet door unlocked and Kira squeezed his way into the toilet, positioning himself in front of the mirror. Satisfied with his vantage point, he unscrewed the little tub in his hand and began applying its contents liberally to his fringe. Ichimaru, however, was not that satisfied. In fact, he couldn't see anything except a large yellow mass, which happened to be his fukutaichou's head.

Meanwhile, outside the toilet door, the rest of the third division stood watching from the doorway of their barracks, gaping in awe. How their fukutaichou managed to pry their taichou away from the mirror so easily never failed to amaze them. The third division then made a long queue, snaking from the toilet door and out of the division quarters door.

--

**Fourth Division**

Isane stood in the toilet, pulling up the spikes in her hair as well as threading the beads onto the longer strands of hair.

Outside, her long-haired taichou stood, getting rather impatient. Her hair, too, was in a mess. She slammed her fists onto the door, screaming 'FISHCAKES! FISHCAKES!'

Inside the toilet, Isane tried hard not to break into tears of fear.

'Taichou! Don't rush me!'

'Isane! I need to get my hair done! There's a taichou's meeting in the morning!'

'Taichou! I doubt anyone would be there! Wouldn't everyone be gelling their hair?'

'Isane!!'

'Please!'

'No!'

'Don't come in!'

'Let me in!'

And thus the rest of the fourth division had woken up.

--

**Fifth Division**

'Hinamori-kun?'

'Ah! Aizen-taichou, I'm doing my hair!'

'Hinamori-kun. There is a grave matter concerning this.'

'Yes?'

'I need to gel my hair.'

'But taichou! I'm still tying my hair!' as she said this, she gently pulled up strands of hair, putting them in place and securing it with a dab of gel.

'Hinamori-kun.'

'Yes.'

'You don't want to go against me, right?'

'No sir.'

'Then let me into the toilet.'

Reluctantly, she unlocked the door and ran for a place with a mirror.

--

**Sixth Division**

'Taichou.'

'What is it, Renji?'

'Taichou I need to do my hair.'

'Shut up. I'm doing my hair too.' In the toilet, Byakuya fumbled around with his kenseikan and his frazzled hair.

'Taichou…I need to use the toilet too…'

'I'm using it too. Do it in the drain.'

'But taichou—'

'Just don't do it in the koi pond.'

'But taichou—'

'Renji, go away.'

'Taichou can I break the door?'

'Sure you can. And then I'll stuff your ugly mug down the toilet bowl, fill it with cleaning detergent and flush it with vigour.'

'TAICHOUUUUU!!'

Desperate and sick of the waterfall of red hair down his back; Renji released Zabimaru and broke the door. The screams of terror and swears against cleaning detergents were loud enough to scare the entire sixth division into thinking the world was ending.

--

**Seventh Division**

'Iba. Fetch me my comb and hair conditioner, and the gel too.'

'Uh, Yessir.' Iba complied, desperately trying to keep his bed hair out of his eyes as he fumbled around for his taichou's comb, soap and gel. Apparently, despite being of an animal form, Komamura had the need for gel to keep his fur down and in place.

'Uh, here ya go.' He tossed the items at the toilet door and patiently waited for his fox-like taichou to emerge. After a painfully long wait, he still never came out. Getting rather impatient, Iba rapped smartly on the door. 'Eh…taichou? Ya done yet?'

'No, Iba. Leave me alone. I still have a lot of fur, you know.'

'Yes sir.'

'…'

'Sir? Are you done now?'

'No.'

'Now?'

'No.'

'Now?'

'No.'

'WHEN??'

'As soon as I'm done.'

'TAICHOUUUUU!!'

--

**Eighth Division**

'Nanao-chaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!'

'Taichou, don't come in!' a panicked voice escaped from the air vents of the eighth division toilet as Nanao tied her hair in its neat arrangement, applying the gel liberally in the areas that needed it.

Outside the toilet, an already-drunken Kyouraku battered his palms on the door, pleading for his Nanao-chan to relinquish the toilet.

'No, not until I'm done!'

'Nanao-chan….so cold…so evil…'

'Whatever…'

'So much attitude…'

'Get lost!'

'So unappreciative of me…'

'Just leave me alone!'

'Nanao-chan, have you seen my hair clip?'

'Like I would care.'

'Nanao-chan….'

'LOOK I'M ALMOST DONE OKAY SO STOP BREATHING DOWN MY NECK!!'

'Why? Does my breath stink?'

--

**Ninth Division**

'Hisagi.'

'Yes?'

'Tell me; did you hide my hair gel?'

'Uh, no sir.' Despite knowing that his taichou was blind, Hisagi hid the tub of gel behind his back, desperately hoping its absence had not been noticed.

'Are you lying to me?'

'No sir.'

'Good.'

'Yes sir.'

'I know you share my values on justice right?'

'Yes sir.'

'…'

'Sir, I bought you a new kind of hairgel. It supposedly works very well.'

'Oh?'

'Here it is, sir.' Hisagi placed a tube in his taichou's outstretched hands.

In the toilet, a monstrous roar that woke the entire ninth division was heard. 'HISAGI!! IT SMELLS LIKE COLGATE!!'

--

**Tenth Division**

'Matsumoto.'

'Sir.'

'Don't let the division come into the toilet. I need to gel my hair.'

'Yes sir.' Although Matsumoto herself had plans of barging into the toilet and pushing her minute taichou out of the way.

Not seconds after he issued the order, she ran into the barracks and beckoned to the entire division, who leapt out of their beds and made a run for the toilet.

The door was shaking so hard it looked like it was ready to spontaneously crumble. Eventually, the weakened hinges gave way as the triumphant tenth division, led by Matsumoto, literally blasted their way into the toilet, conveniently tossing their nondescript superior, toothbrush and all, out the door.

'MATSUMOTOOO!!'

--

**Eleventh Division**

'Ne, ne, Ken-chan!'

'What is it, Yachiru?'

'Are ya done yet?'

'No…'

'Pachinko wants the loo.'

'Tell him I'm using it. He can varnish his head whenever he wants.'

'No, as in, he wants the LOO.'

'Tell him too bad.'

'Oh and Yumi-yumi wants the mirror.'

'Tell him I need it too. What does he even need it for?'

'He says he wants to gel his hair.'

'Tell him too bad then, 'cuz his superior is using it for the exact same reason.'

'Ken-chan…'

'What?'

'I need to gel my hair too.'

'Whatever.'

And she perched herself on Kenpachi's shoulder and gently balanced her gel on top of Kenpachi's head and proceeded with the gelling.

--

**Twelfth Division**

'Nemu.'

'Yes, sir.'

'How long are you going to spend in the toilet?'

'Um, until I finish applying the gel to my fringe.'

'And how long will that take?'

'I don't know, Mayuri-sama.'

'And why not?'

'It depends.'

'On…?'

'I don't know…'

'Nemu.'

'Yes, Mayuri-sama?'

'Hurry up.'

'Why?'

'I have a meeting. I need to ensure you're doing the paperwork when I'm going.'

'I will, you can go for the meeting now.'

'And how will I know?'

'You can trust me, sir.'

'But I don't trust you.'

'Mayuri-sama, you're going to be late for the meeting.'

Meanwhile, the rest of the twelfth division queued up outside the toilet while their fukutaichou tried to persuade their taichou that he could trust her to do the paperwork. Obviously it was going to be a long wait and Mayuri would miss the meeting.

--

**Thirteenth Division**

'Outta the way, Kiyone!'

'Oh yeah?'

'I said, outta the way! I need to gel my hair!'

'Well, me too!'

And the pair continued arguing for the next twenty minutes, in the process waking up their sickly taichou in the adjacent room. He rubbed his already-ruffled long white hair and knocked blearily on the toilet door.

'Eep!' Kiyone shrieked and promptly dropped her tub of hair gel onto Sentarou's head, and it promptly spilt its contents out.

'KIYONE YOU (insert beep) LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!!'

'Well, lemme see…looks like you've got your hair nicely gelled…'

'Kiyone? Sentarou?'

'Yes, taichou?'

'I need the toilet.'

'I thought you don't gel your hair? It's so messy all the time and anyway you spend half the day in bed…'

'Shut up, you idiot!'

'No, as in, I need to use the TOILET.'

'Oh…'

'BUT WE'RE DOING OUR HAIR!!'

--

Isn't seireitei a peaceful place?

- - - - - - - - - - - - -  
ok, this one took much longer than i expected, and also i think it isn't the best I can produce. I'm sorry, but I'm seriously not impressed with myself about this one. but it DID show my views on the impractical spikyness/smoothness of everyone's hair...or fur in one person's case.


	6. 六番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: ********Renji, Yachiru, Byakuya, random appearance of Unohana. **  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 453  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)

Observation 6.  
Okay, I was playing my DS game. And according to Yachiru, Byakuya likes bananas.

- - - - - - - - -

'Hmmm…taichou's been stuck in the fourth division ever since that fight with Ichigo, and the thingum about Aizen…I need to get him something that would get his grumpy mug smiling or he'll kill me the moment he gets let out…'

'Ne, ne, amidakuji-eyebrows!' Yachiru barrelled through the sixth division window. 'Sup?'

'Well, I was thinking of a way to get taichou's mind off me doing all the paperwork and stop him from slicing me with the Doom Of Sissy Pink Flowers when he comes back and finds out I haven't done any of the paperwork.'

'And so…?'

'What does taichou like? Do you know?'

'Eh….i know! He likes bananas!'

'Okay…'

'Ne, ne, amidakuji-eyebrows, could ya take me to the market? We can choose the bananas for Bya-kun!'

'Uh, okay…'

--

The pair returned from the market in rukongai, arms laden with bananas.

'Yachiru, you SURE about this?'

'MMHMM!'

'POSITIVELY sure?'

'Yup!'

'Absolutely sure?'

'UH-HUH!'

--

'Taichou, I…'

'BYA-KUN! Amidakuji-eyebrows wants to make ya happy, so he got somethin' for ya!'

His eyebrows rose.

'Go on, give them to him…'

'Eh…here ya go, taichou.'

A bunch of violently yellow fruits landed nicely on the white blanket. The injured's eyebrows rose even higher. 'Those are…bananas…?'

'YUP! I know Bya-kun loves bananas! So we got 'em for ya!'

'Uh…don't kill me, please…' noticing his taichou's murderous glare, Renji grabbed Yachiru, turned, and ran.

'JYA NE! BYA-KUN!!'

--

'Yachiru, he nearly murdered us when we gave the first bunch! What are we gonna do about the other nineteen?'

'Give 'em to him, of course.'

'Are you crazy? He'll kill us before we can even enter the door!'

'Then you can send 'em bunch by bunch with a sorry letter each time, that way he can't kill ya 'cuz he can't see ya!'

'Mm, good plan.'

--

Over the next few days, the plan seemed to be working well, there were no signs of murder plans, and the banana pile in the sixth division office was dwindling in size.

A black butterfly fluttered in gracefully and quietly through the window, quite the opposite of what Yachiru had done a few days ago.

'Jigokuchou…?'

'Abarai Renji, if I see another banana from you, I will personally come down and see to it that you suffer!'

'T-taichou…'

--

The next day, Unohana stepped into Byakuya's room, in her hands a bunch of bananas and a small piece of paper. She handed Byakuya the note and placed the bunch of bananas on top of the monstrous pile of bananas on his bedside table, threatening to give in to gravity at any moment.

_Ne, ne, Bya-kun! Its bananas! I know ya luv' em!_

_-Yachiru_

Byakuya fumed as he realised his threat had been too vague and simplistic.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -  
I don't suppose this actually counts as an observation as seeing it was so blatantly blinking in my face as I played my game, but I figured, no point starting a new story just for this so...this came out. amidakuji means 'ladder game', where the Japanese draw a series of lines that look like ladders lined up next to each other. then starting at the top, they trace a random route around the lines until they reach the bottom. basically it's eenie-meenie-minie-moe.


	7. 七番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: **the Karakura-mission gang, Ichigo  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 810  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 7

Everyone seems to be able to keep track of other people even in the dark, including their positions and actions.  
- - -

It was a dark night. It was not a stormy night. This is not a clichéd story.

It only has a somewhat-clichéd first sentence.

There was a blackout to boot.

Needless to say, everyone was having a wonderful time patrolling Karakura and scaring Ichigo out of his wits.

'Hollow.'

'Where?'

'There. Walk straight five steps and then turn right.'

'Ya sure, Rukia?'

'Yes.'

'You're not playing another trick on me?'

'No.'

A loud crash was heard as Ichigo crashed into a stack of dustbins, followed by a loud guffaw that escaped from Rukia.

'RUKIA!!'

The small figure let out screams of laughter, her body doubling over with all the laughing. 'Ichigo.'

'Yeah?'

'NUMBER SEVENTEEN!'

'Seventeen…?'

'That was the seventeenth time you fell for a trick within the past one hour.'

'WHAT THE (insert beep)?? You KEEP TRACK of this kind of retarded things?'

'It's only retarded 'cuz you're the retard falling for the same trick over and over again.'

'Shut up.' having said that, Ichigo stomped off.

A slight whoosh was heard as Ikkaku appeared next to Rukia who had resumed laughing her guts out. 'Count seventeen,' she whispered. He nodded and disappeared.

The whoosh was heard again as Ikkaku appeared a few metres behind an oblivious Ichigo. 'Ichigo.'

'AAACK who's that??'

'Me, you dimwit.'

'Ohh, Ikkaku.'

'Ichigo, there's some really huge hollow somewhere…there.' Ikkaku pointed in a random direction.

'Where?'

'There. Turn the corner and to the next building. Hurry up! It's getting away…I'll back you up.'

Another crash broke the midnight silence and a monstrous roar accompanied it. 'IKKAKU!!'

This time Ikkaku slammed his fist into the walls of the nearby building, laughing his tear glands sore.

A very grumpy Ichigo made his way blindly around the building, of which he realised he was standing against and was nowhere near a corner, which made him feel all the more stupid.

Ikkaku then swiftly made his way to Renji. 'Count eighteen,' he whispered, a moment before he shimmered into existence. Just as he appeared, Renji nodded and disappeared.

Renji held Zabimaru at an arm's length and, using the hilt, poked an unsuspecting Ichigo in the middle of his back. Hurriedly, he sheathed it and played innocent. 'Ichigo, ya know that hollow we've been chasing the whole night?'

'RENJI?? Okay, at least you're not playing any tricks on me right?'

'No I'm not. I'm having suspicions that it's able to teleport, so look out, okay? I can vaguely sense its reiatsu…down the main road.' Renji spouted a number of fibs on the spot.

At least it was the main road right? At least he wouldn't walk into any stacks of dustbins right? If there WAS a car, at least it would have headlights right? There wouldn't be anything to crash into right?

Wrong.

He crashed, this time, into a wall of ice.

On the opposite side, he could hear Rukia's raucous laughter.

As suddenly as it had started, the laughing stopped. Somewhat worried, Ichigo broke a hole in the ice wall. On the other side, he realised, was really dark and creepy. Somehow. It was always dark, but somehow that area felt…like it was supposed to make you feel worried.

'Whossat?'

'Espada No.2. I have come here to take your life. I come by orders of Aizen-sama.'

'WHAT THE (insert beep)??' Ichigo whipped out Zangetsu and swished it around, hoping it would hit his target. Obviously it didn't.

'MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!'

This voice sounded rather familiar.

'You…'

'SPILITZ AAH AWWAYZ WIF YUUUUUUU!!' the figure sped off into the distance.

'MATSUMOTO!!'

In the distance, Matsumoto let off a shriek of laughter. 'Count 20!'

Not giving Ichigo any time to panic or fume over his stupidity, Ýumichika seemingly sprouted out of nowhere and pushed Ichigo. 'Run! Hollow chasing! Lead it to more deserted areas and wider ground!'

Nodding like maniac, Ichigo ran and, like a maniac, crashed into another barricade of ice. 'RUKIA!!'

'Count twenty-one!'

--

A hysterical group of shinigami, followed by one battered shinigami daikou, trudged back into Ichigo's house. Rather angry, Ichigo made his way noisily up to his room and slid the cupboard open violently to reveal an equally angry Hitsugaya.

'What the (insert beep) do you think you're doing?'

'Writing reports. Is it such a crime? What the (insert beep) are YOU doing then? The whole lot of you disappearing in the middle of the night only to hear phones ringing and madmen laughter from outside the window? If it were the soutaichou sitting here he'd have the lot of you in a straight line and the soukyoku fired up for a mass murdering.' (A/N: refer to chapter 3)

'Would the soutaichou even fit into the cupboard?'

'Shut up. And go away. Unless, of course, you want to write some reports.' The door slid back closed and a series of electronic beeps escaped from small gaps between panels of wood.  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

yeah, actually I think it's the reiatsu that enables all this sensing around, but since it kind of made sense even though there's a plausible solution and hey, it sounded fun, so I wrote it.  
thanks to Rachel Noelle for the suggestion.

the creative fluids are flowing back! (okay, so I exaggerate. they're OOZING back.) oozing, but coming nevertheless.


	8. 八番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters:** Ichigo, Kon, Ishida, Rukia, Renji, army of hollow  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 1107  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 8

There are heaps of plot holes, especially in the Bount arc.

- - -

Example 1:  
Renji, Ichigo, Chad, and Ishida: trying to get into Inoue's apartment  
Chad: I'll break the door down.  
Ishida: No, too noisy. I'll pick the lock.  
Renji and Ichigo: . . . are in spirit form; can go through the door and unlock it from the other side . . .

Example 2:  
All: being attacked by a water doll  
Kon: Gasp! Choke! Water surrounding me! I can't breathe! I'm drowning! . . . is a plushie, doesn't have to breathe. . .  
Ichigo: Gasp! Choke! Water surrounding me! I can't breathe! I'm drowning! . . . is in spirit form, doesn't technically have to breathe  
Rukia: Oh no, my body is made of mostly water! These guys can take control of it and rip me apart from the inside! . . . is a spirit inside a Gigai. Who knows what the gigai's made out of, but it's probably not water. And even if it was, she could just bail out of the gigai; her spirit form's not made of water, it's made of spirit particles  
Same for Ichigo on the last bit. He can't be torn apart from the inside like that, his spirit form's not made of water either

Or, from the current story arc: (and in Diamond Dust Rebellion, too, actually...)  
Hundreds of Hollows: invade for no reason GWAR WE KILL YOU ALL BY HAVING MASS QUANTITIES!  
Ishida: Oh yeah? My bow fires 1200 arrows per second. Kills them all easily  
BALANCE BETWEEN SOUL SOCIETY AND REAL WORLD: tips  
Everyone: dies  
Ichigo: You know, this is exactly why the Shinigami killed all of the Quincy 200 years ago...  
Ishida: Whoops.

- - - - - - - - -

**Part 1**

'Ichigo.'

'Yeah?'

'I was wondering…you know? In the Bount arc?'

'Yeah…?'

'We passed through Orihime's door…right?'

'Yeah, Renji. Anythin' wrong?'

'Yes. We went through the door, meaning we were unable to make physical contact with is. Then after that we unlocked the door, meaning we could actually touch it. Do you…do you see what I mean?'

'Sounds suspicious…'

'Let's watch it.'

--

'OH MY GOODNESS RENJI WE COULD PASS THROUGH THE DOOR!!'

'Eh, Ichigo, that's the problem I was talking about. Go on, try walking into a door now.'

'NO WAY you want me to die?'

'No, I just want to show you the significance of this major filming error!'

'Uh, Renji, y'know, it wasn't filmed. Actually, we're just these animated blobs of pixels…'

'WHO CARES?? Stupid Ichigo…' Renji proceeded to shred the DVD covers, stamp on the DVD cases, and then chuck the DVDs themselves out the window.

--

**Part 2**

'Kon.'

'What?'

'Y'know, that time in the Bount arc, that time there was that pair of lunatic twins who liked bottle caps?'

'YEAH I DO THEY FREAKIN' TRIED TO STRANGLE ME!!'

'Uh-huh…'

'I NEARLY DROWNED!'

'Uh-huh.'

'Ichigo, you don't seem concerned.'

''DUH I'm not! You're a plushie! What's the worst that could happen? You get shredded to bits, and then we retrieve the gikongan! What's so wrong?'

'THAT'S the problem!'

'Shaddup Kon, and stop shouting.'

'I got wet.'

'Shaddup.'

'I nearly drowned.'

'Shaddup.'

'Ichigo ya don't care, do you?'

'Wanna shower?'

'WHY YOU—'

'I could give you some detergent and stuff, even the scented ones. You just go over to the washing machine, press the big red button, then press the blue button, then yank the drawer open, and then dump the soap powder in, then you get in, then I help you press the big red button again. How 'bout that?'

At this point in time, Rukia entered. 'Oi, I happen to have nearly been killed that night too.'

'Oh really?'

'Really. My gigai's made mainly of…'

'I know. It's made of mostly water. You TRUST what Urahara says?'

'Good point. BUT the point remains that I nearly died.'

'Y'know, you could have just swallowed a gikongan or somethin' and then come out of the water.'

'And why didn't you?'

'Uhh…I…um…well…'

'HA!'

--

**Part 3**

'GWAR WE KILL YOU ALL BY HAVING MAS QUANTITIES!!'

'Mass quantities of what? Dung? Empty brain? Flab? Dead skin cells?'

'Shut up, stupid shinigami.'

'Hey, that alliterated!'

'Ichigo, this isn't the time to talk about literature!'

'But Rukia I was just—'

'Shut up and attack their mass quantities of dung/empty brain/flab/dead skin cells.'

'UPGRADE! My bow can now shoot 1200 arrows at the same time!'

'Uh…'

'I had it upgraded! It can now shoot 1200 arrows at the same time!'

'We heard you, you know.'

_-pazoww-_

'AACK ISHIDA DON'T SHOOT YOU'LL KILL THE WHOLE TOWN!!'

'Really?'

'Yes YOU DIMWIT.'

'Wanna prove it?'

'WAIT no!'

'What?'

'You know, the whole spiritual balance thing…? If it tips too much to one side then…then…what DOES happen? I sure dunno…'

'FIRE AWAY!'

'AAH DON'T!'

'Has anyone died yet?' Ishida innocently pushed his glasses up his nose.

'YEAH, heaps died!'

'Who?'

'The hollow!'

'Weren't they SUPPOSED to die??'

'Well, yeah, I guess…'

'THEN??'

'How 'bout the town? Weren't the Quincy like, wiped out for a reason?'

'That reason being that the shinigami hate Quincy. '

**Part 4**

'RADIO-KON BABYYYYY!!'

'So, Kon, ya got any idea what was happening in the animating studio in the Bount arc?'

'YEAH I DO ICHIGO!!'

'Ok, what?'

'The director was drunk.'

'And didn't the seiyuu cast protest against it?'

'They were drunk too.'

'Are YOU drunk?'

'No. I think Ishida is, though.'

'WHAT??'

'Whaddya mean "what??" what about the "FIRE AWAY!!" bit?'

'…'

'Ok, Kon, I think he IS drunk…'

'I'm a minor! And a law-abiding one at that! You can't accuse me of illegally consuming alcohol!'

'Law-abiding?? What happened to shooting the 1200 arrows at the risk of the entire town?'

'No rule about that, is there?'

Many censored actions and words writhe their way into the radio programme run by a stuffed lion. No surprises there, though.

'Ok, due to violent language and physical violence, the radio programme will stop here for today, thank you for listening (provided you even WERE listening)—'

'NEE-SAAAAAAAN!!'

-squeak-

A loud squeak could be heard as the host smacked bodily into the wall, screaming about his innards and how one fine day they would be severely damaged.

Ichigo said that would be fine.

A now-flat orange plushie peeled its face off the Naruto poster on the wall and screamed at Rukia who had stolen the earphones and microphone from said plushie. He accused her of needless violence and assault on a smaller being.

She repeated the previous message and turned the recording device off, after which she proceeded to pull a red glove onto her right hand (A/N: I think) and advanced ominously towards Kon, who then took the opportunity to scream.

- - - - - - - - - - -

okay! thank-yous go to...Daricio! yeah, I'm sorry I took so long with this even though your (Daricio) suggestion came such a long time ago...(ok maybe not THAT long ago but it seemed long ago to me). but I promised it, and here it is!

I'm not too sure about the "funnyness" or quality of this chapter, so please tell me what you think! thank you!  
for those of you who suggested stuff, please wait patiently 'cuz I do stuff according to how fast my brain can respond to the suggestion with a funny story, but it'll eventually come out, don't worry.


	9. 九番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: **Renji, Rukia, Byakuya, Yachiru, Rikichi (rokubantai taishi)  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 987  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)

Observation 9.

In the early part of the series, Renji and Byakuya come to Karakura to get Rukia back. There, Byakuya doesn't have his haori (the white robe thingie the taichous wear).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_This is set just before, during, and after the collection of Rukia._

_- - -_

'Renji.'

'Yeah?''

'We have orders. We are to go to the real world to pick Rukia up.'

'Oh really? I thought she was on guard there or somethin'…' Renji looked up from the bowl in his hands to stare at his taichou.

'What?' the noble was, rather obviously, not pleased when someone stared at him with The Look on his face.

'Well, I thought that Rukia was on guard duty? She got no reason to come back here yet.' Renji mumbled his opinion through a mouthful of ramen. The noble was, again, not pleased with the naruto newly acquired by his noble neck wrap.

'Well, orders have been given out.'

'So ya just gonna take whatever's dished out? Like if Yama-jii ordered you to jump off the soukyoku and off the cliff to meet your doom with some dung pit at the bottom, you'd do it?'

'He must have his reasons to order me off the soukyoku and the cliff into, as you say, some dung pit.'

'Well, this sounds like a bad omen. Her guard term ain't over yet. Bad omens are, naturally, bad.'

A frown surfaced on Byakuya's pointy face. (A/N: really! Go check the manga or anime or whatever, you'll see that his chin is like a pencil!) 'You will come with me.'

'I have my reasons not to go.'

'I have my reasons to make you go.'

'And those reasons are?'

'Are not for you to know.'

'Pah. You obviously don't have any reasons.'

'And would you care to tell me your reasons?'

'It feels like a bad omen. Like most say, trust your gut.' He then bagged up his rubbish, stood up, burped into his taichou's face and started towards the dustbin. 'And my gut says its full of ramen and that I shouldn't go down. So there.'

Having caught a face full of burp, a rather miffed Byakuya tossed a teacup at his fukutaichou. The cup, much to Renji's relief, bounced off his bowl (which he raised up as a shield after he sat back down in shock) and the shards flew towards the one who threw it.

'Oh crap.' Before anything could happen, Renji dropped the bowl and ran for his life.

In the sixth division quarters, rip noises were heard as teacup shards tore their way through a certain someone's haori, but mysteriously missed the scarf. For those who wonder why, it can be explained by something called gravity. Renji was sitting down, right? So the pieces couldn't possibly have flown upwards and cut the scarf, no matter how pleasing that would be. The rules of gravity cannot be defied, unless a shinigami. Which, the teacup was not. It was a teacup, and is a pile of porcelain shards, and will end up in a Ziploc bag as suspicious evidence in the forensic investigation of the mysterious death of Abarai Renji, which presumably took place shortly after his lunch. Cause unknown. Perpetrator suspected to be either the teacup or Senbonzakura, both equally suspicious.

--

'NE NE BYA-KUN!!' a little pink explosion exploded in the sixth division office.

'What is it.' The noble attempted to maintain his noble-ness in the presence of the one who made it a daily pact to come bother him.

The small figure perched atop the window sill held up what seemed to be a large white tablecloth. 'Bya-kun Bya-kun I found this! Can I have it?'

'Where'd you find it?'

'In the dustbin!'

'…okay, you can have it.'

'YAYY!!'

--

Rikichi entered the office.

'What is it?' Byakuya found himself repeating the same line over and over again in just one day.

'Uh…just reporting…all reports for this month have been handed in and bank accounts are all balanced.'

'Anything else to report? Lost any jigokuchous again?'

'Eh…yes, and no.'

Byakuya's eyebrow rose.

'Um, no, I haven't lost any more jigokuchous, but you have to go to the real world, and Yamamoto-soutaichou requests that you leave now.'

'Anything else?'

'I, uh, saw Kusajishi-fukutaichou running down the hallway carrying—'

'I know, I let her have it.'

'You LET her have your taichou's HAORI??'

'My WHAT?'

- - -

'Taichou.'

''Shush, Renji.'

'Can I ask you a question?'

'You just did.'

'Okay, I was just wondering, where did your haori go?'

'Shut up.'

'But I—'

'Shut up.'

'Why?'

'Rukia's coming.'

'Who?'

'Rukia.'

'Oh…who?'

'Rukia, stupid.'

'Ohh…'

'Yes.'

'So what about your haori?'

'Shut up about the haori!'

--

'Kuchiki Rukia, found ya!'

'…Renji? Nii-sama?'

'Ha! You only realised my presence when I spoke, your senses are dulling…'

'Nii-sama? Where did your haori go?'

'…'

'I'm being ignored!'

'Shut up, Renji. What'cha doing here anyway?'

'Getting you.'

'Huh?'

'Well, I'd just like to tell you to come like a good little doggie…'

'I'm not a dog.'

'Well it was just a—'

'I thought you were the dog.'

'Shut up and come.'

- - -

'KUSAJISHI-FUKUTAICHOUUUUUU!!'

'WAII Bya-kun!'

'Would you please take it off and give it back to me?' he pointed at the ragged haori that Yachiru had worn and was proudly dragging around seireitei.

'NO!! You said you'd give it to me!!'

'Tell the truth. Where. Did. You. Find. It.'

'Behind your division quarters!'

'Which. Part. Of. My. Division. Quarters.'

'The dustbin! Uh…come to think of it…maybe it was the laundry basket? I can't tell…they're always side by side…'

'KUSAJISHI-FUKUTAICHOU!! Please give it back!!'

'No!! You gave it to me, you can't go backsies!'

'What if I give you 5 big bags of cotton candy.'

'Big bags?'

'Big bags.'

'No backsies?'

'No backsies.'

'Okay!'


	10. 十番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: **Shinigami Women's Association, minor appearances of Kenpachi, Ikkaku and Hitsugaya, mention of the Shinigami Men's Association  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 892  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

the shinigami all have these Huge Bottomless Sleeves Of Wonder, storing all these miraculous items ranging from things like jumbo Christmas bundles to giant buns.  
- - - - - - - - - - -

There was a sign on a polished wood door. The sign read Shinigami Women's Association in messy scrawls of calligraphy ink. At the bottom of the sign in small print was another messy scrawl, this time in orange crayon. It read All Guys Keep Out, after which an arrow pointed at the word "Women's" in the header of the sign, with a little "DUH!!!" scribbled in blue marker along the length of the arrow. The word "Women's" was also circled several times in different coloured crayons and markers.

Now, standing at the door with a green crayon in her hand was, in fact, the diminutive figure of the chairperson of the said association.

After underlining the All Guys Keep Out, she scrawled an OR ELSE after the Out.

This was the usual procedure of the chairperson before every meeting. She would pause in front of the sign, spot something that could be added in, and then add it in with whatever writing material she happened to have on her, which was usually a crayon.

Satisfied with the amendments, the little girl with the shocking pink hair entered the room and perched herself atop the meeting table and addressed her minions.

'Ne, ne, what're we gonna do today?'

Someone raised her hand. Yachiru turned towards her and said, 'yeah?'

The soft-spoken Nemu said, 'I was thinking we could engineer something that could benefit the entire shinigami population.'

'Mm…I know!' without waiting for further ideas, Yachiru stood herself up to her full height and the height of the table, which probably amounted to a total of one and a half metres. 'We could make somethin' that could, like, help everyone be able to carry a lot of things without carrying anything!' this only earned her confused stares. She continued, 'kinda like an in-built bag in the shihakushou!'

After ten seconds of murmuring, the association approved and sent Nemu off to do the engineering. After all, it was HER idea. Two hours after that, she came back with a mass of cloth in her arms. She straightened it over the table as the association gawped at it.

Finally, Kiyone asked, 'What's the difference?'

Nemu smiled. 'That's the point.' She handed it over to an excited Yachiru who pulled it on over her shihakushou. Still nobody saw any difference.

That is, until the chairperson reached into the depths of her sleeves to find an enormous void. Immediately her eyes grew in size and began sparkling. Without another word, she launched herself towards Nemu and hugged her. That was when she began screaming. 'NEMUNEMUNEMU!!! How'd ya do it?? Huh? Huh? Huh? Are we gonna make more?? Can I keep this? Do I get more?'

'I suppose we could make some for everyone and market them at a 75 per cent profit price. All proceeds will fund our future projects.'

Nanao pushed her glasses up her face. 'But if we market them at such a high price, who will buy them?'

Soifon looked up. 'We could threaten the likely customers.'

Matsumoto smiled an evil smile. 'We could blackmail the unlikely customers.'

Kiyone, slightly aghast by the dastardly tactics usually employed by the Shinigami Women's Association, said, 'why don't we advertise them? Like, put up posters everywhere.'

After doing things the democratic way, they decided to print posters to convince everyone, and then threaten those who refused. If need be, prices would be slashed (by about one per cent, according to Yachiru), and blackmail tactics would be employed.

- -

The Shinigami Women's Association took things rather literally. Each member was given about fifty posters, which they would stick around seireitei, everywhere, to quote the chairperson, who quoted Kiyone.

So everywhere the posters were.

All over seireitei shrieks, groans, moans and accusations were flying.

'Nanao-chaaaaaaaaaaan!! What's this in my sake bottle?'

'Kiyone! What's this poster doing here?'

'Nemu. What is the meaning of this poster stuck to my computer screen?'

'MATSUMOTO!!! Get your lazy butt in here and tell me what the (insert beep) this ugly poster is doing under my (insert beep)-ing PILLOW!!'

'It's not an ugly poster, taichou! It's a work of art!'

'Not when it's scribbled in orange and blue crayon with "trademark of Yachiru" written all over!' (A/N: of course he means it in a figurative way)

'Fukutaichou, why should we look?'

''Cuz it's somethin' important!'

'What?'

'Come on, can't ya just look, Pachinko? Ain't that hard, is it?'

'Tell me why I should look at a piece of paper hanging from taichou's haori.'

'Just look.'

And so Kenpachi spent the day as a walking advertisement. His scary face coupled with the messy poster (with murder threats) pinned over his division number on the back of his haori pretty much scared everyone into buying at least two of the newly-engineered shihakushous.

Having spent more money than they would rather have spent on the new shihakushou, the shinigami decided to put its improvements to use.

Shinigami were carrying things like candy, spare sandals, sake, hair gel and a few particularly on-the-job taichous stuffed stacks of paperwork in one sleeve and a brush and inkpot in the other sleeve.

- -

Drowning in money, the Shinigami Women's Association had another gathering, this time not discussing how to get money but what to use it for.

The first option to be struck off the list was Donate To The Shinigami Men's Association.

- - - - - - - - - - - -  
Yeah! long time no post, I know, but here it is! this one goes to Delmarch, yups! I know this is from really long ago, but oh well. that's just the way I work...in no particular order. which is probably why everyone thinks I'm a little odd.

oh, and by the way, at the top of this chapter in the observation, there's this reference to the Shinigami Zukan, where Ukitake pulls Christmas bundles (looking a bit out of season though) out of his sleeves and another one where Byakuya reaches into the depths of his sleeve and stuffs Yachiru's mouth with this enormous bun. looks better than rabbits coming out of hats, if you ask me.


	11. 十一番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters:** soutaichou, Kenpachi, Yachiru, Kyouraku, Ukitake, Hitsugaya, first division taishi, minor appearance of Matsumoto, minor appearances of all taichous, eleventh division.  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 1344  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 11.

The taichou's and fukutaichou's zanpakutou disappear whenever they enter the office. They appear at their waist again when they step out. Even in the office, the zanpakutou is nowhere to be seen. However sometimes, someone is seen without his/her zanpakutou

- - - - - - -

There was a fight in the eleventh division quarters. Again. Typical of every morning.

Incidentally, the soutaichou happened to be standing by the entrance gate and heard every single expletive uttered during the daily morning war. He also happened to have observed the damage caused by The Daily Morning War.

Having witnessed countless zanpakutous going through countless window panes like they were water, and then having witnessed said window panes shatter a split second after the dangerous weapon poked out of the window, Yamamoto decided that from that day on, nobody would be allowed to even have his or her zanpakutou on hand whenever in the office or division barracks.

In order to enforce his newly-created rule, a fleet of jigokuchous had been dispatched, calling the highest rank of each division to report to the meeting hall in the first division quarters.

Obviously, after the soutaichou spilt the beans, his subordinates were, to put it mildly, not at all happy. Especially the eleventh division. It was this same day the soutaichou increased his expletive dictionary by 200 per cent.

--

By the time each taichou had decided to return to his/her office, a set of lockers (without the lock) had been put up outside the barracks. The lockers were of a uniformed length and had a height of a fist. In other words, the lockers were made for taking up as little space as possible and for a zanpakutou to lie horizontally in it. There were as many lockers as division members. They were labelled too. Outside each division office was another set of lockers, but the number of lockers was considerably smaller. There were about twenty-five lockers there, giving the entire division a maximum of five visitors when all the seated officers miraculously decided not to go out drinking.

This new feature constructed within the time span of a single meeting made everyone suspect that all these lockers had been pre-made and that the soutaichou had been harbouring this idea for at least a couple of months.

With previous experience with the respect shinigami had for rules, or lack thereof, the paranoid leader of seireitei decided to position two guards outside every division's office and barracks, in hopes that the divisions wouldn't think of beating up the guards. Having thought of this, he called another meeting to tell about the numerous rules on this locker issue.

For one, locker exchanges were not permitted. No exceptions. Next rule, anyone who beat up the guards on duty would suffer. No exceptions either. Third rule, nobody but yourself would be held responsible for the loss of your zanpakutou if your locker didn't have a lock. Fourth rule; if one forgot his/her locker combination, getting another shinigami to slice it open with his/her own zanpakutou is illegal. If this was attempted, both shinigami would be charged with vandalism and destruction of public property. Instead, approach the fukutaichou of first division to claim your code. And the list just went on…

It is also your own stupid fault for asking a friend to keep your zanpakutou for you only to find it missing the next morning.

In the end, everyone was rather tempted to just burn the wooden lockers to ashes and be done with it. They might even pay Hinamori. Until they took a look at The Locker Handbook and found out that rule number 45 stated that any form of destruction of the locker was not permitted.

Not in any mood to suffer, the shinigami decided to abide by all 97 rules for the night and mull over destruction plans that night. Every locker with a name had something in it and was locked properly, and every shinigami had three numbers scribbled on the palm of their non-dominant hand.

The soutaichou had been very orderly in the arrangement of the lockers outside the offices. The taichou's locker would be at the top left, followed by the fukutaichou's right below it, then the san-seki's just below it. They were arranged in five rows of five, the last column was unlabelled and reserved for visitors.

It was this orderliness that caused problems in the tenth and eleventh divisions, namely their taichou and fukutaichou respectively.

--

'Eh, Kusajishi-fukutaichou, do you need help?' a guard on duty at the eleventh division directed this offer at the diminutive figure of Yachiru, who was tiptoeing and swinging her zanpakutou dangerously over her head in an attempt to place it in her locker. She could barely reach Yumichika's locker. The offer was ignored and the pink-haired fukutaichou screamed. 'KEN-CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAANN!!!'

This scream brought the said shinigami running out of the office, not to mention that it also brought every shinigami out of the offices and barracks.

Kenpachi took the small pink sword from his fukutaichou and stuffed it into the locker. Yachiru's eyes sparkled; she opened her mouth and moved it at untraceable speeds. 'Kenchanhow'dyadothathuhhuhhuhhuhtellmetellmetellmeIwannadoittoocouldyatellmehowhuhhuhhuhpuhleeeeaaaasie???'

This sentence sent everyone, including Kenpachi, back into the office/division barracks.

--

The taichou of the tenth division stared up at a wooden locker more than an arm's length above his head. The main reason he was staring at it was because it had his name on it and the guard from the first division was also staring at him.

After a five-minute stare-down with the locker and the guard, the guard decided a little help could be offered. 'Um…do you…uh…need help?' Hitsugaya threw him a glare but tugged his zanpakutou out and handed it to the guard anyway. As per normal, or not-so-normal for anyone else, the sheath dissolved into the green band across his body. The guard stared blankly at the unsheathed weapon and looked up. 'Um, sir? The zanpakutou has to be sheathed before…'

'And what do you expect me to do about it?' the temperature was dipping.

'Put the sash in with it.' The guard pointed at the green band.

After throwing another glare in the guard's general direction, Hitsugaya removed the band, thrust it in the guard's hands and then turned with a huff into the office where he threw a paperweight at the sleeping Matsumoto's head. Which failed to wake her up.

--

The next morning Kyouraku and Ukitake seemed to have a plan. They called for an illegal taichou's meeting, excluding the soutaichou, in the thirteenth division meeting hall. Kyouraku spoke. 'As you can see, this system isn't exactly what we call successful.' He glanced over at Kenpachi, whose division had another hand-to-hand combat in the early morning, and then proceeded to retrieve their zanpakutous and have a full-out brawl in the front garden, thus wrecking the outside of the barracks, ruining the rest of the windows.

Kyouraku continued. 'So, the plan is to gain the soutaichou's trust in this locker issue, and then the moment he takes the guards away, we break the rules and bring our zanpakutous into the office like we used to.' He paused to drink half a bottle of sake. 'It's just the skeleton of the plan, so we called you guys here to refine it.'

Ukitake then butted in. 'But the eleventh has to restrict their fights to outdoor areas. Fights for the toilet must now be taken to the field of training grounds.'

Kyouraku nodded in agreement. 'In fact, you could even use the training field as a toilet. Just don't poison the bushes.'

--

Once the guards had been taken off duty, every locker was empty and constantly locked. All twenty desks of the sekikan of the last twelve divisions each had three hooks suspended on the underside of the desktop while every bed in every barrack of the last twelve divisions had the same three hooks installed on the underside of their bed frame. Traditional sekikan who slept in a futon had a zipper compartment at the side of their futon.

That same day, when the first division was on duty for clearing all the rubbish from each division, was the day the first division discovered that they were the only ones still using the lockers when they found innumerable copies of The Locker Handbook in every dustbin.

* * *

sidenote: sekikan (席官) means seated officer. taishi (隊士) means division member.

-EDIT- yeah! this one's abilityPOINT's idea! (so sorry I forgot to credit you before...it slipped my mind) -EDIT- (12 november 2008)

okay, yay! new chapter! yeah, but I think this chapter is a bit...not the best that I could produce. I went to bed last night, thought it over and then typed it out in the morning. this is mainly because I'm going to be away starting from thursday and won't have any access to my documents OR the internet for that matter, so I thought I should post another chapter before I go away. chapters should start coming back, say...nextnext week? I can't be sure. if I', particularly bored another chapter will come out today.


	12. 十二番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: **Rukia, Ichigo, Urahara, Ururu  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 638  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 12.  
The gikongan dispensers look disturbingly like "Pez" sweet dispensers.  
- - - - -

_This takes place shortly after Rukia tells Ichigo to take over her shinigami duties  
_- - -

'Oi, Rukia.'

'What? Oh, and what's this?' Rukia waved a juice packet under Ichigo's nose.

'That's juice. I was going to ask you, Where. Are. You. Taking. Me. After. School.'

'Oh…so this thing is called "juice"…how interesting…I wonder what you do with it…'

'Answer my question, midget!'

'What question? And who's a midget, if I happened to hear what you said correctly?'

'Where are you taking me to after school?'

'Oh, so I'M the midget…I see…DON'T CALL ME A MIDGET, NUMBSKULL!!'

'RUKIA! Where are we going after school?'

'Hmm…so this "juice" thing…what DO you do with it?'

'You drink it. ANSWER ME!! (Insert beep)'

'Naruhodo…so…how do you drink it?'

'GET ON WITH IT AND ANSWER ME!!'

'And what's this little plastic tube here?'

'ARE YOU IGNORING ME??'

--

After dismissal, Rukia dragged Ichigo out of the classroom and out of the school grounds.

'Rukia! For the last time! Where. Are. You. Taking. Me!'

'Oh really? It's the last time? Good. I'm taking you to some shop that I always go to.'

'And that's going to help me?'

'Yes.'

Just then they turned a corner to face a shabby looking house. The front door slid open and a blond man with a green-and-white stripy hat poked his head out of the house. 'Ah, Kuchiki-san! What do you want to buy today?'

Rukia marched up to the door and slammed it. The man ducked back in just before it made contact with his head, whining. 'Urahara! Stop being so useless, will you?'

'Useless?' Urahara now tried his best to sound like a wounded puppy. 'Useless? I run a shop, you know.'

'Right. Then get me a gikongan.' Rukia jerked a thumb at Ichigo, who was still trying to figure out where they were. 'For him.'

'Ahh. I see…Ururu-chaaaaaaan!!'

'Ah, hai.' A small girl in a white shirt and pink skirt appeared at the doorway.

'Ururu-chan go get a gikongan for this gentleman there, will you?'

Rukia sputtered and spewed juice all over Urahara. 'GENTLEMAN?'

'Just wait for Ururu-chan…'

'And that's what I mean by useless.'

The hurt puppy look was back.

Ururu returned with a small paper bag, which she handed over to Rukia. Rukia thanked her and made her payment, and then finally dealing Urahara a kick in the face before turning to leave. There, she swung the paper bag at Ichigo's head and dragged him out of sight of the happy-go-lucky shopkeeper.

Urahara waved and told them to come back soon.

--

Back in Ichigo's room, Rukia introduced the little device to him.

'Basically, when you swallow one of these, it forces your soul out of your body and places another soul into your body. It works the same as the red glove, but this time it doesn't look like you're dead because there is still a soul in your body.' This lecture was accompanied by a drawing pad with rabbits, green balls and blue arrows all over it.

Ichigo frowned. 'It would be easier to understand if the illustrations weren't there.'

An encyclopaedia found its mark on his head and left its mark there.

'Anyway, I think you should try it just to know what to expect when you use it for battle. You can give the replacement soul orders as well. You just push the animal head down, and the pill will project itself out of the holder. Then you swallow it.'

Ichigo did as he was told; only that no pill, green or otherwise, shot into his mouth. Instead, a white rectangular tablet jutted out from the base of the figurine at the top of the plastic tube. One could see the confusion written all over the pair's faces.

After a long silence, Ichigo finally said, 'hey, isn't this thing, like, one of those Pez candies you get at the supermarket for three dollars?'

Another pause.

'URAHARAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!'

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

yeah! okay, I had been planning this over my holiday, which I am, by the way, back from. if that sentence didn't make sense then ignore it. anyway, the suggestions remaining from people is becoming a really small number (1, i think), so please keep contributing ideas! ideas are not spam, no matter what you say, so idea away at my inbox or reviews, whatever.


	13. 十三番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters:** Hisagi, Matsumoto, Hitsugaya, Renji, minor appearance of Byakuya and rokubantai taishi (sixth division members)  
**Pairings:** none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 1113  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 13.

Byakuya is usually wrong. Like when he said that Ichigo's bankai wasn't a bankai and stuff like that…

- - -

Hisagi Shuuhei, fukutaichou of the ninth division, panicked as he repeatedly flicked his thumb through the stacks of paper on the table next to him. 'Aaaaaah…' he moaned, flicking his thumb through the stacks again and again. A member of his squad entered the room and he immediately vented his feelings on him by shaking the poor man's shoulders. 'Where are the reports for the sixth and tenth division???'

The door behind Hisagi slid open once more. This time Matsumoto stepped through with a stack of paper. Half the stack was crisp and neatly filled out and the other half looked like it had been through the washing machine a few times before finally being filled in by a toddler. 'Ah, so it IS the right room…'

Hisagi just about snapped. 'Don't tell me you haven't been here before? Come to think of it I haven't seen you come down to the publication department before anyway…' the stressed-out fukutaichou in charge of collecting the reports snatched the stack from his colleague and fellow drinking buddy and dumped it on the table before finally realising that the pile was much higher than the others. 'Matsumoto! How many months of paperwork is this?'

'Oh, a couple…' she counted the fingers of one hand before moving on to the next hand, by which time Hisagi's jaw had dropped.

'EIGHT MONTHS??'

'What do you think I am? Stupid? I'm counting in years!'

'That pile is only worth three months, at most!'

'Well…you could say I lost a few, and tore a few, and several times forgot I had them with me until I washed my shihakushou…'

'Figures why all the paperwork from your division always comes in small amounts every month…how much of your paperwork is done by Hitsugaya-taichou?'

Matsumoto smiled guiltily. 'Gotta pity the guy…'mumbled Hisagi as he proceeded to panic again.

As if on cue, said shinigami appeared at the doorway with another stack of paperwork, looking weary. 'Oi, Matsumoto, you missed a couple of piles. How many years of paperwork did you find mysteriously hidden in sake bottles and how many years did I discover in my desk? LAST NIGHT. At ELEVEN. When you had this epiphany and told me to check my desk while you decided to drink some sake, only to find out you filled them with paper a couple of decades back?'

Hisagi caught on quickly and figured that though Matsumoto had a good night's rest, it seemed otherwise for her grumpy superior. He shoved the two out of the room and sent Matsumoto on a trip to the sixth division to find out why they hadn't submitted their reports.

--

'Renji,' Matsumoto addressed another of her drinking buddies before entering the room to see him diligently working on a stack of paperwork. 'Shuuhei wants to know why you, uh, haven't brought the paperwork in?' she raised an eyebrow at Renji, as though she was asking a very stupid question.

'Why are you asking me such a stupid question? Obviously 'cuz we're not done with it!'

'Uh…right.'

'What? Why're you looking at me like that?'

'Maybe it has something to do with the paperwork being due today.'

'WHAT?' that being said, the fukutaichou of the sixth division leapt out of his seat and ran to the room where his taichou was also diligently working on the paperwork due "next week".

'Taichou! How much paperwork do we have left?'

Byakuya gestured at a tall stack of paper.

'Matsumoto! Help us!' the red-haired fukutaichou grabbed a stack of paper and his friend's arm and ran screaming about deadlines before poking his head back into Byakuya's office to inform him about the imminent doom and the deadline they crossed.

And so, Matsumoto found herself seated at a desk in the sixth division working on paperwork as well.

Before long (five minutes), Matsumoto decided that helping people do paperwork would not be one of her favourite pastimes and that maybe she should get someone who frequently did that.

--

In less than five minutes, the fukutaichou of the tenth division was back from a successful mission to kidnap her taichou from his office and drag him bodily to the sixth division.

And in less than one minute since his arrival at sixth division Hitsugaya found himself running from two fukutaichous who were desperate to make him sit down and do what he spent the entire previous night doing: paperwork.

Unfamiliar with the layout of the building, he also found himself flinging random doors open and charging through them without a second thought.

This changed when he ran into a broom cupboard.

He turned quickly around and ran straight down the corridor where the two fukutaichous were struggling to catch up with him. Noticing an unopened door Hitsugaya flung it open to find that it lead to a room full of rokubantai taishi. He grinned wickedly and finally decided to pull his rank on someone. 'I ORDER the lot of you to go to Kuchiki-taichou's office! ALL of you!' he yelled at nobody in particular. Everyone in the room, who was currently having an afternoon meal known as lunch, froze and looked up (not that far up though) to see a rather angry-looking superior who had just crashed their canteen and ordered them to leave.

Naturally, they all left and ran for their taichou's office.

--

Due to efficiency under threat, the entire sixth division had completed all the paperwork and sent Renji to deliver it to the publication department. Meanwhile, a certain someone was threatening to kill another certain someone along with her happy drinking buddy. The intended victim of the murder was whining. 'Taichouuu…you didn't have to threaten them! And why do you want to kill me?'

'No, I shouldn't have threatened them. I should have told them that they could all have party bag each if they did their work well. Yeah, RIGHT.' He was dripping sarcasm which promptly evaporated when it came into contact with a surface known as Matsumoto Rangiku.

'Oh, that would be nice! Why didn't you do that instead?'

--

Renji gawped when he arrived at the publication department where a deranged Hisagi met him. 'Wow…it's open!'

'Of course it's open! How are people supposed to hand in their paperwork when it's closed?' snapped Hisagi.

'Well, every time I deliver the publication department is closed and I have to dump the stacks outside the door instead.'

Hisagi's eyes narrowed. 'Abarai-san, I think that's because from the beginning of time, your division has been getting the submission date wrong.'

'But taichou—'

'Next time ask someone else for the submission date. For important things, never ask Kuchiki-taichou. He has a blur streak in him.'

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Xx Trinity xX contributed this one. yeps, thank you so much for reading my ridiculous little drabbles.

yay! I finally updated! I had some writer's block so I couldn't write for quite a while, but then I watched one shinigami zukan and then this idea hit me and I sat down and wrote it in one sitting. I'll try to update sometime this week as well, maybe tomorrow if I have another epiphany. and just to inform you lot I would be away from monday to friday next week (8-12 dec 2008). that means no update. however, reviews and SUGGESTIONS are very welcome. especially the suggestions. I'm rapidly running out. anyway, I think I talk too much.


	14. 十四番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters:** young Hinamori, young Hitsugaya, young Kira, young Renji, minor appearance of Hitsugaya as he is now.  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 1052  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 14.

When Hitsugaya's zanpakuto is sealed, it is fairly plain, except for the star-shaped tsuka. There are lots of shots of Hyorinmaru on his back, so this is quite clear.

In the manga, Hyorinmaru gets a chain with a crescent moon attached when Hitsugaya goes to shikai, but in the anime, he is seen using this attachment even when Hyorinmaru is in the sealed state. For example, he catches Ichimaru's sword with his chain when backed into the corner; Hyorinmaru is clearly sealed because Hitsugaya releases it a few moments later. (Episode 48?). Likewise, in episode 132 (the soccer filler), he uses the chain attachment to freeze and remove the Menos Grande's arm. There are probably more, but I don't watch a lot of anime; I'm more of a manga person.

Oh, another thing about his zanpakuto. Some fanfics give the impression that Hyorinmaru's sheath vanishes when the sword itself is drawn. Personally, I just think it opens up and reseals, but I don't think anything's been confirmed. See, Hyorinmaru sits on Hitsugaya's back by a sash which seems to have each end secured to the sheath. But if the sheath vanishes, why does the sash stay on Hitsugaya? Wouldn't the ends be flapping? The little pin he wears would not keep the sash from falling off his shoulder.

(Just a little added author's note: in the DS game, the sheath actually dissolves and becomes the part of the sash spanning his back, holding the entire sash together.)

- - - - - - - - - -

A high-pitched wail reverberated through the academy. 'I lost him!!' Hinamori charged down random corridors with a confused Kira and Renji in her wake before breaking into screams for a certain "shiro-chan". When she finally decided to breathe, Renji asked, 'who?'

'He's small, got white hair and big eyes and kinda cute…'

Having heard the description, the two boys set off to look for a dog while the girl continued her search for a small boy.

It just happened that Hitsugaya was on the other end of the school compound hoping Hinamori wouldn't try to look for him and also holding a shouting match with his newly-acquired zanpakutou.

**Calm yourself.**

'CALM myself?'

**Yes. Just listen to me.**

'And tell me why I'm even listening to you when you don't?'

**Cooperate with me, and you will see what we can do together.**

'Aside from making the coming of the next ice age a couple of millenniums ahead of schedule?'

**You have to learn to cooperate, or we will never achieve anything.**

'And why should I cooperate with you when you refuse to do the same with me?'

**And might I retort that question right back at you?**

At that moment, the sheath on his sash went a bit stir-crazy. With a few "pop" noises, it alternated between a section of the sash and an immensely long blue sheath.

'Stop messing with me!' he yelled, waving Hyourinmaru around in the process tripping over the end of a navy blue sheath strapped across his back. Upon tripping over the end which was dangerously close to the ground and his left ankle, the sheath promptly disappeared and became a part of the sash.

Snarling at the sword, Hitsugaya got up and threw it javelin style across the field. As he released his grip from the hilt, a long chain erupted from the butt of the sword with a crescent moon on the end. Due to the forces of inertia, the hard, cold, metal crescent moon whacked the small boy straight in the face.

Running to where Hyourinmaru landed, Hitsugaya was ready to pick a fight with the sword when he ran into Hinamori, who was holding his zanpakutou in her right hand and looked ready to pick a fight with the owner of the zanpakutou.

'What are you DOING?' he yelled, only to add a simple phrase 'nechouben-momo' when he saw Kira and Renji approaching. Hinamori scowled and pointed the unsheathed weapon at Hitsugaya.

'And what are YOU doing?'

'Arguing with it. So give it back so we can argue some more, unless you want me to start arguing with you for you to give it back,' and then with a smirk, he repeated her embarrassing nickname in front of Kira and Renji.

Sighing, Hinamori tossed the zanpakutou back at its owner, chain smacking Hitsugaya in the face as he caught it and attempted to sheath it, only to find that the sheath had disappeared.

Once it was sheathed, Hinamori practically slung Hitsugaya over her shoulder and made for the exit, arguing with the small boy she was dragging.

'You DO know that I was supposed to take you back for the term break.'

'Why d'you think I wasn't anywhere near you?'

'YOU KNEW!'

'Smart deduction.'

'Shut up! Oh, by the way, glad to know you and Hyourinmaru are getting along well…'

'Shut up.'

'You know, like they say, shinigami and zanpakutou have similar personalities…'

'SHUT UP!'

'You know that if you make me angry I can just drop you.'

'Go on.'

Deciding to return the insult that he had thrown at her in the school grounds, with a slight smirk she said, 'no, I wouldn't like to drop you, _shiro-chan_, because then that would make you happy, wouldn't it?'

Upon hearing that nickname, Hitsugaya howled with rage and immediately began hammering Hinamori wherever he could reach, which to say, didn't cover a lot of area.

However, Hinamori responded exactly as he wanted her to and dumped him on the ground where the two started an all-out brawl, and it was here that Kira and Renji caught up with them.

Kira felt the urge to break up the show before anybody decided medical help was needed. 'Uh…what are you doing?'

'Trying to bring the devil back home for the term break!' screamed Hinamori.

'Trying to stop this demon from dragging me home across her back!' Hitsugaya yelled at the same time.

'Who're you calling a demon, huh?'

'Oh yeah? What was that I heard about a devil?'

This time Renji interrupted. 'So why do you have to bring him home?'

'We live in the same house, idiot,' both children retorted at the same time before glaring at each other.

'No, uh, I mean, why is there a need for you to bring him home?'

'Because he's little.'

'Am NOT! I can go home myself, nechouben-momo!'

'Perhaps, if you knew the way home, shiro-chan!'

Renji and Kira glanced at each other. 'Wait…'

'Wait what?' Hinamori scowled.

Kira pointed at Hitsugaya. 'He's "shiro-chan"?'

Hinamori gave him a "duh" look while Hitsugaya threw a look that threatened instant death. (A/N: boil in water for two minutes and voila! It's ready!)

'We thought you were talking about a puppy,' the two older boys replied after a slight hesitation.

'YOU WHAT???' the little boy/puppy was not happy. He/it was not happy at all.

Sensing the high-voltage electricity flowing, Hinamori grabbed Hitsugaya (once again) and charged down a path, far, far away from Kira and Renji.

Screaming with rage, Hitsugaya was screaming murder threats. 'I'll KILL them! BOTH of them! And you too! WHEN are you going to stop calling me that ridiculous nickname?' (A/N: edit-boil in Hitsugaya for five seconds and voila! It's ready!)

Hinamori felt a need to answer that one. 'When are YOU going to stop calling me that ridiculous nickname?'

'As soon as you stop wetting the bed! Or futon! Or whatever you're sleeping on!'

'Shut up!'

'When are you going to stop calling me by that ridiculously stupid nickname?' he pounded her back. 'ANSWER ME!' he yelled, before spouting profanity anyone his age really shouldn't know.

'Fine! I'll stop when you're tall enough to not trip over your own zanpakutou!' Hinamori screamed.

--

The taichou of the tenth division cursed again as he tripped over Hyourinmaru's sheath.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

heya! this one goes to Legerdemain! (let's hope I got the spelling right)  
anyway, my apologies to Vi-Violence, 'cuz I said I'd do her idea, but this one popped up and I had so much trouble thinking of one plot/plotless for her idea that...well...I got a little sidetracked? I'm so sorry!

yep, hope you enjoyed it this time, peeps, please review! (hehs)


	15. 十五番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: **Ikkaku, Yachiru  
**Pairings: **none, as far as I know  
**Word Count:** 294  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 15

When fighting in mid-air, sometimes the shinigami can stay in the air, but sometimes they fall to the ground.

- - -

'Pachinko!!'

'What, Yachiru?'

'I saw what you did in the real world!'

The third seat of the eleventh division grunted as he tipped another bottle of sake down his throat.

'Ne, ne, Pachinko, how come you can fly? I saw it, when you were fighting the mask-guy! And then after that, you fell! Why? I thought you could fly? Huh? Huh? Pachinko!'

'Alright! I'll answer your (beep)-ing questions!'

'Yay! Tell me tell me tell me!'

'I can fly, happy?'

'You…can fly? You mean Pachinko has wings? Like chibi-kun?'

Madarame Ikkaku was once again interrupted from his story. 'Who?'

'Chibi-kun! You don't know him?'

'Forget it, I don't wanna know. Anyway—'

'No, no! I wanna tell Pachinko, and then Pachinko can get smarter! Cuz right now Pachinko ain't very smart.'

'DO YOU WANT ME TO ANSWER OR NOT?'

'Pachinko, don't shout! It's rude, ya know.'

'SHUT UP! Fine, tell me which idiot you're referring to, and then let me continue!'

'Chibi-kun from the tenth, of course!' Ikkaku mentally slapped himself. Firstly, how many chibis were there in seireitei anyway? How could he be THAT daft? Secondly, he'd just called his mission leader an idiot.

'Right, as I was saying, I have wings, so I can fly.'

'Like chibi-kun?'

'NO! NOT like chi—, uh, um, never mind. You see, you can't see my wings. Nobody can. But it's kinda like a health bar, the lower your health, the smaller your wings, and you can feel it in ya. And then when your health gets so low that your wings can't support you, then you fall.'

'Like chibi-kun?'

'I DON'T KNOW! SHADDUP ALREADY!'

'Can I have wings too?'

'Yeah, yeah, everyone has wings. Ya just hafta know how to use em.'

'COOL! Teach me!'

'ARGH!'

* * *

heya! thankyous to Vi-Violence this time!

and I'm so, so, sorry for the late update. school started and everything...


	16. 十六番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters:** Yachiru, Byakuya, jyuunibantai-taishi  
**Word Count:** 444 (oooh)  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 16.

At one point the sleeves of their Shihakushos will only go slightly past their elbows. Then not two seconds (or panels) later, their sleeves are long enough that you can't see their hands. In particular, Byakuya and Gin.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The twelfth division editing team went over the episodes of Bleach, for some reason blessed with the presence of Kusajishi Yachiru.

Although curiosity killed the cat, it somehow never failed to spare Yachiru, whether she was of feline form or not. So as the underpaid members of the video editing team trawled through megabytes of video with their editing tools all ready on the computer, a certain someone was having fun on another computer. Yachiru froze the screen for a close up detailed look at what her sharp eyes had spotted. From her perch in front of the computer she called, 'ne, ne! Byakkun got some funny thing on his arm!'

Crowding around the screen and enlarging the image of the rokubantai-taichou's forearm several time, the team eventually agreed that there was something with six legs resting on the man's arm and it shouldn't be there.

But much to the horror of these professional editors, the happy fukutaichou of the eleventh division had edited the sleeves of the Kuchiki clan head until they covered his hands and, successfully, the insect. The team had something along the lines of "edit the anomaly away" rather than "edit the norm to cover the anomaly" in mind.

Carefully scrutinising the next minute of the show, Yachiru realised that when Byakuya turned his arm to different angles, the interesting six-legged thing would disappear. So theoretically, when the thing wasn't there, then the long sleeve had no reason to be there.

Feeling particularly accomplished, Yachiru decided to show the rokubantai-taichou the product of her amazing editing skills. Naturally, when Yachiru's happy, Byakuya isn't. 'Kusajishi-fukutaichou. Next time when you decide to stash the editing team in a cupboard, edit the video PROPERLY. This means I do not want my sleeves sporadically alternating between short and long throughout a major battle.'

The following week, Yachiru had once again invaded the twelfth division quarters and stayed true to Byakkun's words. Locking the editing team into a random cupboard she hoped didn't contain anything potent (aside from the division members, that is), she sat down and edited the continuation of Byakuya's epic battle. And once again pleased with her skills (and after letting out a bunch of angry underpaid shinigami), the 1.09m tall explosive made her way down to Byakkun's office to show him what she had done and hoped he would be happy.

'Ne, ne, Byakkun, the funny six-legged thing was still on your arm, so I put something else instead of long sleeves!' she fast-forwarded through the video to show him what she meant.

'KUSAJISHI-FUKUTAICHOU! THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN SPROUT A "PRETTY BUSH" THAT MOVES AROUND THE SCREEN WITH MY ARM!'

* * *

okay, this one's from...(insert drumroll)  
Arrancar-Baka! um, so I didn't involve Gin, I'm sorry, but I thought that Yachiru had better interaction with Byakuya, therefore making it more enjoyable to write.

so...thank you everyone for sticking with me so far, and let's hope the suggestions come rolling in.

OHOHOH I almost forgot! I started a poll in my profile, so could you pleasepleasePLEASE go vote in it? thank you so much!


	17. 十七番

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own bleach.  
**Characters:** Yamamoto and mentions of the Eleventh division  
**Word Count:** 363  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 17.

In many fanfics, (including my own!), the temperature of the room drops when Hitsugaya gets mad. This theory is unproven, but let's just play with it, okay?  
And just a little warning, Hitsu is NOT in this drabble. You read the character listing right. This drabble was merely inspired by this invented belief.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The soutaichou was not one of the most patient people in the world. Even then, even the most patient person would blow up sooner or later either waiting for the reports of the eleventh division or _reading_ their reports.

One cold winter day, which to say the least did not help with Yamamoto's mood, the man was sitting at his table attempting to go through the other twelve divisions' reports as slowly as possible while waiting for the reports of a _certain_ division whose reports often came in a few weeks late written in crayon and fox blood.

Already nearly done with the thirteenth division's reports, Yamamoto was close to exploding while the snow outside was rapidly melting. Trying desperately not to suffocate all shinigami except for the twelve taichous, he attempted to reign in his reiatsu.

But the snow was still melting and his tea was boiling.

Bursting out of the room to break up another episode of the Daily Morning War and demand some paperwork, the soutaichou found the entire first division filled with shinigami. Already not in a good mood and being a grumpy old man, he roared at what seemed to be half the seireitei population. 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE??'

He swore he heard vague mumbles about the temperature and how it was suddenly warmer and how they found that it was significantly warmer in the barracks of the first division and so everyone who entered, stayed there and called their friends.

Sending everyone except his own division members out, the leader of seireitei stomped back into his office in an even worse mood than before. Needless to say, this brought everyone back.

Three months later in the early weeks of spring, a bundle of rumpled papers in a mixture of colours and animal blood arrived at his office. It contained an apology about the late submission which didn't sound at all apologetic and a footnote that said they had struck a deal with the other divisions that they wouldn't hand in any paperwork during winter in order to keep warm.

That spring was an exceptionally warm spring, and nobody knew exactly why, except for Yamamoto, of course.

* * *

A/N: okay, I know this update took supersupersuper long, and is supersupersuper short, but then as a lot of people should already know, school has started and I'm not happy about it.

and...in case you didn't notice it in the previous chapter, I'll say it again here: THERE'S A POLL ON MY PROFILE!! votevotevote please! oh, and I just wanted to ask you guys, should I give all these chapters titles, or should I just leave them as they are in the japanese numbering?


	18. 十八番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters:** Ikkaku, Yachiru, and mentions of Kenpachi  
**Word Count:** 489  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 18.

Ikkaku is left-handed. Or at least it looks like he is, unless he uses Houzukimaru's sheath for combat and its blade for defence, which really, doesn't make a lot of sense. Let's just assume he's left-handed, okay?

- - - - - -

'Pachinko Pachinko!'

'What is it, fukutaichou?' the bald san-seki of the eleventh division rolled over in an attempt to evade his superior's poking finger.

'Teach me how to fly.'

'WHAT??'

'You said you could fly! You mean you can't??' a look of despair washed over her face. 'But I wanted to fly, too!'

'Right. Tell taichou. After all, you can't become a taichou if ya dunno how to fly, right?'

'NOOOO!!! I want PACHINKO to teach me.'

'And why's that?'

'Cuz Ken-chan never teaches me. Ken-chan always ditches me in the field and tells me to use my muscles.'

'Uh-huh, innit what we're SUPPOSED to do?'

'But how do I use my muscles when there's nobody to use em on?'

'Fine, FINE, I'll go train you, but I won't teach you how to fly. You can ask Kuchiki-taichou about that one.'

'Yay!' the hyper fukutaichou dragged Ikkaku up by the collar (after all, there's no hair!) and ran to the training field and screamed to the entire eleventh division to evacuate the field so Pachinko could play with her.

Ikkaku instinctively stood in a battle stance and attempted to explain to Yachiru about how fighting wasn't just, as Ken-chan said, waving a random sword randomly around but involved a little bit of thinking too.

But he left out the fact that he normally skipped the thinking and let the intelligence divisions take care of that part. After all, they ARE the fighting division.

Before he could demonstrate anything to his expectant fukutaichou, she spat on his head and told him that he was using the wrong hand, and who can fight with the wrong hand? I mean, you don't need to think to know you can't fight with the wrong hand. You just have to try and land a hit once and get hit once and you find out the painful way.

'Fukutaichou, not everyone uses their right hand to fight. There is a small group of people whose left hand is their stronger hand.'

'Right,' she nodded. 'Now show me.'

However, before he could even do anything, he was stopped once again. 'PACHINKO!! Don't fight with the wrong hand! Ya get hurt, thickhead!'

Ikkaku looked blankly at her. 'I thought I told you that I use my left hand to fight.'

'But you took out your sheath and held it in your wrong hand! What's the point in that when the sheath is supposed ta keep the sword safe? What do you do with it? It's not gonna DO anything!'

'FUKUTAICHOU!! Do you want to learn or not?'

'Maybe, maybe not. I wanna see how good Pachinko is first.' The stubborn child folded her arms and pouted.

'Right.' Ikkaku once again readied himself, curling his left fist around Houzukimaru's hilt and gripping its sheath in his other hand.

'STOP!!'

'What now?' a certain bald someone was getting irritated and alcohol-deprived.

'You're holding the sword in the wrong hand.'

* * *

heya! I'm back! um, so I've got a little problem. my poll counter isn't working, so could whoever voted/wants to vote please send me in a PM or review what you would like to vote for? please include the poll number, or I'll get confused! thankyou!

**-POLLS CLOSED- [13TH MARCH 2009; FRIDAY THE 13TH]**

of course, this means I will need all of your suggestions and support in this story, which heaps of people have been doing so far, but I am seriously in need of suggestions.  
thank you everyone for bothering to actually read all this.

and as a confirmation of the previous drabble, I re-read the manga and it is confirmed that Hitsugaya's shikai _can_ control the weather, but the part about his reiatsu influencing the temperature when he's mad is still only a fanfic belief.


	19. 十九番

**DISCLAIMER:**i don't own bleach**.  
Characters:** Nnoitra, mentions of Kenpachi, Yachiru and Noriyuki Abe  
**Word Count: **382  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
**- - - - - - - - - - - - - -**

Observation 19.

Nnoitra has a hollow hole in his left eye, and Kenpachi and viewers can see through it to the other side. BUT! When the camera zooms in from behind, it doesn't show any hollow hole. Presumably Nnoitra's hair is covering it, but then that means we can't see to the other side, which we can.  
(A/N: Noriyuki Abe is the director of the BLEACH anime and the anime is produced by Studio Pierrot. All those who hate the Bount arc can now go after these people. I'll gladly join you)

- - - - - - -

The director of the hit television series was not happy. Having trudged down the (very long) corridors of Las Noches, he was now situated outside a toilet mechanically slamming his fist into its door. At first glance one would think he was insane. In fact, the man was ready to admit he _was_ going insane.

Inside the toilet which Noriyuki was abusing, an irritated espada who goes by the name of Nnoitra was getting, well, irritated.

Banging his fist against the toilet door, the fifth espada shouted, 'Shut up! Leave me alone!'

Noriyuki just kept banging. 'Come out, or we'll replace your role.'

'No way! Wait for me, you nincompoop! Or I'll dice you up!' He bashed his fist against the door again.

Of course, no standard toilet door was built to withstand such abuse.

And of course, all the toilet doors (except Aizen's personal one) were standard toilet doors.

So, Nnoitra's door came crashing down on the unsuspecting director. The sight that met his eyes was one that Nnoitra would never live down.

The fifth espada stood in front of the mirror with an eye patch attached to a wig in his hands, not to mention a head bald enough to rival a certain san-seki. Upon seeing this, Noriyuki burst out laughing and ended up running for his life through the sandy deserts of Hueco Mundo.

Eventually, the laughter subsided but the wig jokes still hung in the air and the director had conveniently cut a hole through the back of the wig, stating that it looked cool.

Of course, the owner of the wig begged to differ.

Or rather, he didn't beg to differ. He DEMANDED to differ. Come on, espada don't beg!

After the filming of the dramatic scene between Nnoitra and Kenpachi, Nnoitra picked himself off the sand, rather unhappy that he had to be the loser that lost, and screamed at the camera to edit out the hole in his wig, which fortunately for the editing team who would have otherwise suffered a terrible demise, decided to (partially) agree to. His wig chose that moment, in the blessed presence of Kusajishi-fukutaichou, to fall off his head.

'Ahahaha! Long-hair-kun is like Tsururin! 'She giggled. 'Oh wait. If he's like Tsururin then we can't call him Long-hair-kun…'

'SHUT UP!!'

* * *

thanks go to...Crimson Cupcake!! (aka Art is a Bang XD). yay!

I'm sorry if this drabble seemed a little unclear, but I realised it didn't flow very well if I clarified the doubts. so I'll clarify them here. The editing team covered up the hole during the scenes where he had his back turned, but didn't bother to edit out the hole when the audience could see through it for coolness' sake.

and...my polls. they're both still open, I'm just waiting for five votes per poll. (I know, my expectations are rather low). so please, vote via review or, if you don't want other people to know your vote, drop me a PM with your vote. thank you guys so much


	20. 二十番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: **Matsumoto, Hinamori, Hitsugaya  
**Pairings:** no matter how much I cannot stand it, I realise a little HitsuHina slipped in. well, if you squint. HitsuMatsu if you squint harder. BUT, don't squint, boys and girls. it's bad for your eyes; you'll end up like Ichimaru Gin, and Hitsugaya and Hinamori will hate you for life. well, unless, of course, you hate them too. then that's fine.

**Word Count:** 397  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 20

Matsumoto's zanpakutou is strangely similar to Byakuya's.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

A certain Matsumoto Rangiku was not the happiest person in seireitei at the moment. She dragged herself randomly around seireitei, complaining about the new training system the soutaichou had come up with, more than likely inspired by the dream he had the previous night. According to the (not so) prodigious idea the ruler of seireitei dreamt of, all existing zanpakutou were categorised and the one with the highest rank would conduct one-on-one training with the others.

With all her loyal drinking buddies training for the upcoming war, the fukutaichou of the tenth division reluctantly shuffled back to her office to get yelled at, she supposed. Once she entered, she found Hinamori complaining about the exact same thing she had been complaining about. The second-in-command of the fifth division stomped around the office and complained out loud for the world to hear while the taichou of the tenth division filled in paperwork at the desk, brush in his right hand and left hand in one of his ears.

Hitsugaya noticed his second-in-command enter the room and exploded, the explosion being frequently interrupted by Hinamori's rants.

'MATSUMO—'

'And it's so stupid—'

'Where the (bleep) have you BEEN, you—'

'I don't want to go for this ridiculous—'

'IDIOT!!'

'Did you call ME and idiot?'

Both parties recomposed themselves. 'No. I was talking to my idiot of a fukutaichou.'

'I was talking to you!'

'And I wasn't listening.'

'Mou, Shiro-chan stop being so pissy!'

'I am NOT being pissy and make HER do the paperwork!' Hitsugaya jerked a thumb to the door where Matsumoto stood.

'Fine. Ran-san, go do the paperwork.'

'No! I don't want to!'

'It's not about whether you want to or not. I ORDER you to do it.'

'But taichou! I sprained a muscle I never knew I had!'

A silvery-white eyebrow arched. 'And I suppose that would be the brain?'

'Taichou! The brain isn't a muscle!'

'You're right. In your case it's 100 per cent fat and dead flies.'

'Taichou!'

'Fine. Then go for training. I need to train Kuchiki.' He got up and turned around. 'And you should go for training too, Hinamori.'

Both females wailed. 'I don't WANT TO!!'

'What's WRONG with you people?'

'Kuchiki-taichou's really horrible!'

'Kuchiki's probably saying the same thing about me. Get your fat butt moving. You?'

Hinamori wailed again. 'The soutaichou! He'll chop my head off!'

* * *

hello! I know it's been a loooooooooong time since I updated. I kinda spaced out for a long time. (: I originally wanted to do a story about the absence of Ikkaku's socks, but then the brain and dead flies joke popped up in my head one day and I couldn't resist.

and, uh, since nobody's voting, the polls are all closed. the results are: I will keep updating this story until I get old/run out of ideas. and.....I will update my Christmas story ASAP, no matter how weird it looks in march/april, so that I can make a sequel this year. yeps.


	21. 二十一番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters:** Yamamoto  
**Word Count:** 390  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 21.

Seireitei has telephones, so why do they still communicate by butterfly?

- - - - - - - -

The soutaichou of seireitei sat peacefully in his office, sipping tea in the peaceful mid afternoon. That's what afternoons are for, after all.

Well, the eleventh division is an exception. It never _can_ be peaceful, even at three in the morning over there, not with a certain bubblegum-pink-haired fukutaichou running the place.

Yamamoto Genryuusai Shigekuni sat serenely, holding his steaming cup in both hands but before he could actually drink any of it, the irritating machine on the table chose that moment to explode into a deafening series of rings.

All old men have delayed reactions. About ten seconds after the phone erupts with noise pollution, Yamamoto dropped his teacup into his lap, effectively scalding himself and shattering the cup. (Oh happy day). Ten seconds after that, he realised that the phone was ringing so he rose to his (wobbly) feet and walked (with a wobbly walk) over to the desk to (in a wobbly fashion) pick the phone up. Then, (in a wobbly voice), he spoke into the phone. 'Who is this?' he decided not to mention the tea down his pants, nor his wobbly legs.

There came the hyper voice of Kusajishi-fukutaichou. 'Ne ne, Yama-jii! You wanna come for a picnic with us? Pachinko packed rabbits!'

He slammed the phone down. He went through all that trouble of getting up and forgoing his tea (not to mention his pants) just for a ridiculous invitation to a ridiculous picnic where he, the all-powerful soutaichou of seireitei, was supposed to snack on rabbits that were more than likely picked up from rukongai and eaten raw? He swore, he nearly got a heart attack.

After sitting down to have a nice think (and another cup of tea, not to mention a pair of new pants), the soutaichou sent out his minions to inform all other divisions that they would no longer be using telephones. They were bad for one's health, apparently. Nobody understood why, and the soutaichou preferred it that way. After all, isn't ignorance bliss, especially when it concerns you and a pair of wet pants?

So, an army of butterflies were modified by the twelfth division to become communication devices and distributed to the thirteen divisions. However, the soutaichou never thought of disposing of the telephones so pretty soon, the higher-ups of the divisions began devising April fool's plans.

* * *

yay! thanks to...**stormwolf527**!! yay...

yeah, and if you didn't catch it in there, there's a little spoiler up there for what I'm writing for April fool's this year.


	22. 二十二番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: **Aizen, Ulquiorra, Ichimaru, mentions of Orihime  
**Word Count:** 751  
(note: word count excludes observation statement)

**Parings:** UlqiHime if you squint. like, SQUIIIIIINNNNNTTTTTTT kind of squint.  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 22

Aizen has evil evil evil plans to take over the world

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Cuatro Espada stepped, almost cautiously, into Aizen's throne room. The mastermind of the End Of The World (or so he thought) looked up from the crystalline orb known as the hougyoku. 'What do you want, Ulquiorra? You're wasting my precious time.'

The Cuatro Espada resisted the urge to roll his eyes and tell his ruler that spending your afternoons stroking and talking to a crystal ball wasn't going to help situations much. He bit down on the snide comment and presented Aizen with a box and said, 'Aizen-sama, the girl we captured—Orihime'

'I _know_ she's called Orihime,' Aizen snapped. 'Get on with it. Don't tell me you want to propose to her.'

'No sir. She has given me this item, and after looking through it, I thought you might find it useful.' _To pass time, that is, _he thought sourly. In his mindscape he would be in the real world ripping the head off a certain human who went by the name of Kurosaki Ichigo, not lurking around in Las Noches attending to some pitiful captive of his boss.

Nevertheless he got down on one knee and presented the box to the ruler of Hueco Mundo. He may hate his boss, but he liked to have a head atop his shoulders.

Dusting the bits of doughnut off his fingertips, Aizen reached out and picked up the large but flat box that was labelled "RISK: the tactical war game".

Okay, now he was interested. 'You are dismissed,' he absently waved a hand in Ulquiorra's general direction. Said Espada bowed and left, dusting the icing sugar and doughnut crumbs off his head once the door closed behind him.

As the door slammed with a resounding _dong_ (what on earth/seireitei/huecomundo is that _thing_ made of?), Aizen unwrapped the plastic covering of the box, and then removed the shiny little soldiers and cannons from each bag. The figurines, he noticed, were of different colours from each bag. There was yellow, grey, black, red, blue and green. Below the Ziploc bags of soldiers and carriages and cannons, was a small book called instruction manual, which Aizen read thoroughly while slowly munching his way through another doughnut that this time left strawberry jam on his fingers. Even below the instruction booklet that was now stained with jam was a large rectangle which Aizen found could be unfolded into an even bigger rectangle. It, according to the manual, was called the playing board.

Very carefully, he set out soldiers among the different coloured patches on the playing board which he suspected was land. Military mind taking over, the defector immediately divided each of the six armies into squadrons and spread them over the board. He hoped they had ships and not just horse-drawn carriages as he dragged platoon after platoon over the Atlantic Ocean using the spoon that was previously used to stir the tea that he finished a couple of hours ago. Occasionally he took the dice and rolled it and used the number shown as the number of soldiers he decided to drag across the next continent.

Eventually, Ichimaru came in and casually picked a doughnut out of the box before proceeding to stare at the tactical layout. 'Ne, Aizen-sama, what're ya doin'?'

Without looking up, Aizen replied, 'Plotting my schemes for the upcoming war. You see, if I move these two platoons down into Africa, then they'll get attacked from Madagascar, so instead they should be moved to India, where they can conquer Pakistan, but from there the green army will come down from Russia…'

The right-hand-man of Aizen took his time to munch through the box of doughnuts and stare at the playing board and the shiny new figurines before taking the teaspoon and wildly gesturing around the board, saying , 'tha' is all rather impressive, but where is Soul Society? This ain't gonna work!'

Aizen stared blankly from the board, to Ichimaru, to the empty box of doughnuts, then at the board, and then Ichimaru again, then looking remorsefully at the empty box of doughnuts he said, 'Ichimaru, go down to J. Co and get me another few boxes. And call Ulquiorra here as well.'

The silver-haired man turned and left, and a few doughnut-deprived minutes later, the Cuatro Espada was back in the throne room, cursing his luck. Another few minutes passed and Ulquiorra left the room and yelled at the orange-haired feminine captive, 'WOMAN! AIZEN-SAMA WANTS ANOTHER SET OF "RISK", AND HE WANTS SOUL SOCIETY AND HUECO MUNDO ON IT!!'

* * *

okay! heys again! I know I havn't updated in a while, so here it is. and I know I have quite a few contributions from you guys that I havn't used, but I couldn't think of a funny story, but then I saw the RISK game that we had at home and this whole thing just came churning out in less than half and hour. hope you enjoyed it!

thanks go to.....ME!! (urgh how egoistic. next time if I don't put any credits here it means I came up with it, m'kay?)

OHYES I started a poll on my profile, please go and see it and vote! thank you guys so much.


	23. 二十三番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: **Hitsugaya, Kusaka, Matsumoto  
**Word Count:** 377

**WARNING: **extreme OOCness

(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 23

Hitsugaya went through the whole diamond dust rebellion with a hole in his stomach

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Kusaka Soujirou, former classmate of Hitsugaya Toushirou, plunged the blade of Hyourinmaru through the roof of the broken carriage. The blade met its mark, hitting the young taichou of the tenth division in the stomach with a squish; a splash of red was beginning to appear on his shihakushou.

Hitsugaya looked down in disgust as he jumped away from the attack while Kusaka merely stood in front of him, cackling in his face. Resisting the urge to cackle back as his former classmate and best friend, he turned to back away, but Kusaka said something that completely shocked him.

'Ketchup. I smell ketchup. IT'S McDONALD'S KETCHUP WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU TRAITOR??'

His jaw dropped from the sheer shock of it all. Recomposing himself, Hitsugaya yelled back, 'It's not McDonald's, you uninformed freak! It's from Burger King!'

'TRAITOR!' Kusaka bawled back. 'You're supposed to get it from KFC!'

'There's nothing wrong with Burger King, you racist!' the undignified taichou screamed back at Kusaka.

'I HATE the royal family; why else would I steal their precious artefact? _My precioussssssss._'

'Um, I think we kinda sidetracked?'

'Oh yes. Why _Burger King_, of all places! Why not Long John Silver's or something like that?'

'Because I don't like heated underwear.'

'How about Carl's Jr.? There's nothing wrong with that one.'

Below, Matsumoto was starting to get worried. 'Taichou?' she called out tentatively. 'Say something, or I'll dye your hair pink!'

'THEIR PICKLES TASTE LIKE DISH SOAP!'

'Swenson's, then?' Kusaka tried again.

'Taichou I don't CARE what pickles taste like will you come down?' Matsumoto shouted desperately.

'Their hotdogs look like bananas!'

'Pizza Hut?'

'Taichou if I bought you hotdogs that don't look like bananas would you come down?'

'BOYCOTT PIZZA HUT!'

'Cold Storage? Wal-Mart? Seven-Eleven? The market down the road? Uncle Joe's Tomato Farm?'

'SHUT UP I HATE KETCHUP IT STAINED MY SHIHAKUSHOU AND HYOURINMARU!' roared the now highly undignified taichou of the tenth division.

'Taichou if I promise never to take you to McDonald's to eat French fries ever again will you come down?'

'You traitor you stained my Hyourinmaru too!'

'It was your own stupid fault for wanting to stab me, you traitor! Would you rather I used salsa sauce?'

'Taichou do you need mental assistance and guidance?'

* * *

heya! credits this time round for...stormwolf527!! yay(: this idea was totally random and a lot of these things, like banana-hotdogs and dishsoap pickles and boycotting pizza hut are like, verbatim for me.

erm, and as a side note, heated underwear is more commonly referred to as "long johns"


	24. 二十四番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters:** Hanatarou, Unohana, Academy instructors, mentions of Renji  
**Word Count:** 346

(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 24

The Academy seems to involve a lot of physical training, so how, exactly, did Hanatarou live through it and become a shinigami?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Yamada Hanatarou. A small, weedy student of the Shinigami Academy, the wielder of Hisagomaru, this was probably an adequate description of the kid. Hanatarou trudged around, spending half his life trying to convince other students that his name was, in fact, quite easy to remember.

Nobody ever remembered it. Everyone just called him Tarou or, if they were a little confused between the genders (who could blame them?) Hanako.

The Academy first realised his potential, or lack of it, in the first kendo training session. The poor boy missed his opponent with every try and in return for it stumbled off to the first aid kit and later filled up a form for a new bokutou.

Later, the kidou practice session was even worse. The instructors couldn't help but one by one leave the training grounds groaning and moaning about pay rises and making the entrance exam have kidou elements in it too. Eventually the last instructor who had won the endurance competition named Yamada Hanatarou fled, dismissing the class more than a half-hour earlier than usual.

Really, Abarai Renji had better grades.

The only thing all the instructors in the Academy could agree about this Yamada Hanatarou was that his only strength was hopping out of windows before people could catch him and scream at him for failing the test paper once again.

The other thing was that nobody knew what Hisagomaru could do; the boy had yet to land a hit on anyone. At least, nobody knew until Seireitei made another one of their strange incursions to the Academy to review them. This time was the taichou of the fourth division, Unohana Retsu. To quote the students, the lady who wants a beard.

She'd found Hanatarou and his zanpakutou and left without saying much more than "his abilities will be incredibly useful to the Gotei 13, so if you don't mind, thank you."

To this day, Hanatarou never knew what compelled Unohana to drag him out of the Academy, aside from the lone suspicion that Hisagomaru had to be more powerful than he knew.

* * *

credits go to....[insert drumroll] Zephrya of Breeze! yay!

yay...I know it's been like a millenium since I touched this, but if you've been living under a rock, I got a new story up!! no idea how it'll go in terms of how people will like it...so please go there and review and tell me what you think and ALSO review here too!! (ahahaha I'm becoming one of those review pigs)

it's also my holidays now, but it's already more than a quarter over (sad right??) and I really, havn't touched that growing pile of homework gathering dust and cobwebs in my school bag which is also, incidentally, gathering dust and cobwebs.

ohwell. till next time...


	25. 二十五番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters:** Yachiru, Byakkun, minor appearance of Ikkaku and Kenpachi  
**Word Count: **535

(note: word count excludes observation statement)  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Observation 25

Ikkaku doesn't wear socks. I'm sure everyone knows about this one, unless, of course, you live under a rock.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Kusajishi Yachiru, recently-appointed fukutaichou of the jyuuichi-bantai along with her father-figure Zaraki Kenpachi, recently appointed taichou of said division, sat on the office table with bored looks plastered across their faces and large hauls of untouched paperwork surrounding them.

'Oi, Yachiru. Go do something to amuse yourself, and stop bothering me.'

'Kay! Can I maul someone?'

'...No. That brings in paperwork. Do something else.'

'Kay!' the short, pink-haired soon-to-be disaster shouted after a split second of a thoughtful look. Then she was gone, leaving only dust (and elated squeals) in her wake.

Said soon-to-be disaster was found in the barracks of her division, ransacking the drawers of their san-seki, before taking off with every single sock she found and running for her life to the Kuchiki mansion. Unsheathing her zanpakutou, Yachiru slashed a hole in the washi that decorated the shoji and wriggled through. After all, it wasn't called breaking in unless you _destroyed_ something.

* * *

In the Eleventh division, a howl was heard from the office. 'Taichou! The fukutaichou stole my socks!'

'Live with it, Ikkaku. Make up some excuse for not wearing socks, and use the money you were planning to use to buy new ones to buy dinner instead.'

'...Is not wearing socks as a manly trend an acceptable excuse?'

'Yeah...perfectly fine. Anything that doesn't give us more paperwork is perfectly fine 'round here,' Zaraki Kenpachi gestured vaguely at the stacks of paperwork covered in cobwebs and a light dusting of spiders.

* * *

Sitting on the tatami without removing her zori with a satisfied squeak, Kusajishii Yachiru began her craftwork, which consisted of hacking socks to shreds and colouring them with crayons before sticking the multi-coloured shreds to the toe of another sock with a potent mix dust and drool. Once every sock had been either desecrated or minced, the little girl happily bounced out of the room, only to be spotted by the one and only master of the house - Kuchiki Byakuya.

Said man and taichou glared down at Yachiru from his impressive 1.8 metre height. 'Kusajishi-fukutaichou, your rank, contrary to your beliefs, does _not_ earn you the right to prance into my house.'

'Then can you teach me?'

'Teach what.' it wasn't a question; it was a statement, an order.

'How to prance,' she replied with an equally straight face.

'No I will not. Neither will you enter my manor.'

'But Rukia-nee-chan can! Why can't _I_?'

'Because,' with a hint of menace in his voice, the honourable noble growled at the little girl and fukutaichou, 'she is my _SISTER_! She has every right to enter my house!'

'Then can I be Byakkun's sister too?'

An eyebrow twitched. _Byakkun?_ 'No.'

'Why no~~~~t?' oh great. Now she was whining.

'Tell me, Kusajishi-fukutaichou, who do you consider part of your family?'

'Um...Ken-chan is my daddy!' she chirped brightly.

'Right. And if two people become brothers and sisters, what happens to their parents?'

'The one with the daddy and mummy will share them with the one who doesn't!'

'Exactly. I do _not_ want Zaraki-taichou as my _"daddy". _I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.'

'Then...you can be my second daddy!'

'Kusajishi-fukutaichou, people generally do not have two fathers.'

'That's alright! You can be Yachiru-chan's mummy.'

- - - - - - - - - - - -

_this one's from....your frenenemy!! aka Assell. or Assell, who used to be your frenenemy. However you want to put it._

_urghhhh it's been a looooooong time. and don't ask why the day I choose to write is the day before my project is due D: I just work that way. (maybe it has to do with procrastination...?)_

* * *

_a little guide:  
san-seki = third seat, ie Ikkaku  
tatami = japanese woven mats, generally indoors  
zori = the shinigami sandals_

_anyway, here's a note, about the part where Yachiru breaks and enters. in Japan, stepping on tatami mats without removing your shoes is practically a sin. _


	26. 二十六番

**DISCLAIMER: **i don't own bleach.  
**Characters: **Byakuya, Renji, Sixth Division Seated Officers, mentions of Rikichi  
**Word Count:** 437

(note: word count excludes observation statement)

Observation 26

Rikichi (Renji's obsessed fan from sixth division) always lets the Hell Butterflies out. So why is he still in charge of them?  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**MINUTES**

5.22am: The bi-annual meeting of the Sixth Division Seated Officers commences. The meeting is headed by Kuchiki-taichou and minutes will be taken by Abarai-fukutaichou, who will temporarily be our secretary. The secretary tries to run out of the room but gets pulled back by the chairperson of the meeting.

5.24am: Peace is restored. Abarai-fukutaichou begrudgingly takes the clipboard.

5.25am: Some low-ranked officer asks why this is taking place before the sun rises. Long silence ensues.

5.30am: Kuchiki-taichou asks whether anybody has any issues to be resolved. Long silence once again.

5.38am: Same low-ranked officer repeats question. He is ignored. Silence once more.

5.40am: Kuchiki-taichou asks whether anybody has any other issues to be resolved. He then leans over to check on minutes. An indescribable look crosses his face. For details' sake I will draw it out, Taichou please keep st—

5.41am: Kuchiki-taichou requests that the secretary, Abarai-fukutaichou, take the minutes properly. He then brings the one-sided discussion back on track.

5.50am: After a prolonged silence, some other low-ranked officer asks about our declining numbers of Hell Butterflies.

5.51am: Kuchiki-taichou looks at the minutes once again and asks the Secretary why he does not know the names of his fifteenth-seat and eighth-seat officers. Secretary curses and threatens to cast kidou.

5.52am: Kuchiki-taichou ignores the mumbling Secretary and proceeds to address the problem at hand. Some other officer suggests that a new post be given to Rikichi.

5.54am: Fourth-seat declares that Rikichi has messed up on every job he was assigned in the past. Fifth-seat informs congregation that there no longer are any job posts left for Rikichi.

5.55am: A very long silence as everyone contemplates a new job for Rikichi.

6.13am: An officer suggests that if Rikichi gets an office job, there should be nothing to fear.

6.14am: An immense expression of fear washes over everyone's faces. Secretary drops ink brush. Kuchiki-taichou's eyebrows knit together in a very comical way.

6.16am: The subject is dropped. Secretary drops clipboard. Kuchiki-taichou accuses the Secretary of doing it on purpose. Secretary denies. Officers watch with bemused faces. Kuchiki-taichou and the Secretary are not pleased.

6.17am: Cold War begins. Secretary refuses point-blank to take any more minutes.

_**AWAS**_

_An array of inappropriate doodles spread over the rest of the paper. The Sixth Division (excluding the Secretary/Fukutaichou) is very sorry for all profanities and other unmentionable subjects that appear within these minutes. Doodles continue to the next page._

**_/AWAS_**

6.57am: Kuchiki-taichou dismisses the officers, snatches the clipboard out of Abarai-fukutaichou's hands and hits him viciously over the head with it.

6.58am: On the way out, someone comments that the sun has yet to rise.

* * *

CONTRIBUTED BY.....**Zephyra of Breeze**!! yay(:

YES!! I'M BACK!! after about, erm -/hastily counts fingers but quickly runs out/- well, very long. I'm so sorry!! really, but I ran off and wrote a few other stories (oops), so if you haven't read them, please do! -/proceeds to pimp own goods/- I like _An Introductory Guide to Technology, _ahahaha~ -/goes into egotistic mode/-

and...for those who may not know (I suppose many of you), AWAS is like danger, or warning, in Malay.


	27. 二十七番

Observation 27.  
Matsumoto Rangiku is like a social octopus. Has anyone seen the colour omake? The one where the divisions think of stall ideas for a fair...she appears everywhere!

Characters: Renji, Hitsugaya, mention of many other people. Especially Matsumoto

* * *

'MATSUMOTO!' roared a monstrous voice from within as an icy gale hit Abarai Renji in the face just as he slid the door open with a noisy clatter. Dusting the frost off his nose and desperately trying to regain his manliness over his chattering teeth, the Fukutaichou of the Sixth Division stepped gingerly into the frigid office of the Tenth Division.

'Uh, I was here to deliver some paperwork?' Renji asked nervously, hesitantly holding out a stack of paper at an arm's length in the general direction of a fuming Hitsugaya-taichou who looked to be on the verge of hurling his teacup out of the window in the hopes of hitting a certain blond Fukutaichou on the head with its steaming contents. There was a short, unintelligible mumble as the vertically challenged Taichou motioned the stack of paper towards the corner of his table.

'Have you seen Matsumoto?' Hitsugaya asked through gritted teeth.

The red-haired man could feel his pity for Matsumoto rising, and rising fast. 'Well, we went out for a drinking party last night...'

'Who is this "we"?' Hitsugaya inquired oddly fiercely. Renji highly doubted it was because he hadn't been invited.

'Uh, all- _most_ of the Fukutaichous...' Renji caught himself at the last minute as an image of Nanao flashed through his mind.

'How about before that?'

Now Renji was starting to wonder when Rangiku had last stepped into that office, noticing at last the cobwebs growing around her chair. 'Well, a couple of days ago she left for the real world with Ikkaku and Yumichika and Ukitake-taichou's credit card. I think.'

At this point Hitsugaya was scribbling furiously on a piece of paper. Stealing a glance at the paper, Renji struggled to stifle a snicker. Seeming to be a To-Do List of some kind, it read: _borrow strong adhesive (superglue?) from Kurosaki; glue Matsumoto to the chair; research "credit cards"; find Ukitake_

The list seemed to go on, but he couldn't quite make out the rest of it, and his attention snapped back to the issue at hand with a muffled 'Ahem'.

'Yes?' Renji could tell he would not be seeing the tall blond Fukutaichou for a long, long while.

'Before that incident.' The child prodigy began tapping the table with the end of his brush.

'How long ago?'

'About a month?'

Renji sighed. This would be a long afternoon. 'There was that one time she took Yachiru out for some sightseeing, and then I think a couple of weeks ago the Shinigami Women's Association had a sleepover party, and there was also the time Kyouraku-taichou invited her to the pub. Oh, and I think she spent a while in the real world with Inoue Orihime.'

Renji had never seen anyone write with such speed before. Perhaps one day if they had an awards and nominations ceremony [1]...

The red-haired Fukutaichou was dragged back to reality with a deep sigh coming roughly a metre away from him. 'Very well. Kindly inform that social whirlwind of yours to report back here by seven tonight or I shall send the couch to the incinerator.'

'Yes sir.' and Renji shuffled his way out of the office. Perhaps he could convince the rest of the Fukutaichous to pool together a consolation basket, but meanwhile he would concentrate on his current task of locating the unpredictable madwoman of a Fukutaichou.

* * *

Author's Note: yeah, so I haven't been here in really, really long. And as you've realised, I've also decided to do away with the last chapter of acknowledgments because it seemed to be causing quite a bit of confusion concerning the updates, and also it got a little too hard to keep track of everything. So...thank you to all of you who made it here with me! I think I'll end off this series at, uh, 50 chapters? I'm sorry I can't update regularly or anything and I know the usual excuse is school, and it really is! I'm really sorry!

[1] Oh, and tell me if you want a fic about the awards and nominations ceremony...cause I just might.

And, uh, if any of you ask, why Renji? It's because isn't he just too fun to bully? I'm not sure, maybe it's just me, but ever since the Zanpakutou arc I've found Renji very, very, very extremely bully-able.


	28. 二十八番

**it would be greatly appreciated if you didn't scroll down and skip this. **Hey, the prospect of a new chapter can't be _that_ interesting, can it? Anyway, you know what? Guess what? I bet you know it. We all know you know it. Our review count has reached a 3-digit number of which the first digit is not 0! This calls for a celebration. As such, amidst the final exams and the chaos and everything, I have decided to kill myself by doing up 13 4-panel omake strips (no prizes to guessing why 13) and sticking them up on deviantart when I'm done with them. Hilarious-ness is guaranteed, お楽しみ！

Winter Bunny (rabbit? dangit. I can't remember.) has brought up the issue of people leaving articles of clothing while moving at extreme speeds beyond that of a normal Shunpo. So, before you turn tail clutching your hair and innocence at the speed of light squared, I would like to inform everyone that the content is perfectly safe for everyone and suits the rating of the story. Please don't run away.

Observation 28.  
When Yoruichi and Byakuya do cool shunpo things, they like to leave some stuff behind as they disappear.

Characters: Urahara, Ururu, Jinta

* * *

_The Tale of Cinderella, as told by Urahara Kisuke_

'Now, I'm sure you all know the story of Cinderella, so we'll skip to the part where she renders the royal kitchen out of food, having been even more ravenous than usual after sprinting to the refreshments table before anyone else. You haven't?' The blond man tutted in disapproval at his small audience of Ururu and Jinta. 'We'll start from the beginning, then.'

'One fine day, the king was feeling rather bored and coincidentally in excess of food. As a result, he decided to invite every young girl to the palace to satiate his manly longing, having noticed the lack of females in his household.' At this point, utter confusion was written across the faces of both children. Ignoring this, Urahara continued.

'So, Cinderella's terrible step-mother and step-sisters left for the palace, unfortunately leaving the youngest daughter behind without lunch. What was she to do?' He paused dramatically. 'Her instinct, of course, was to run after the trio and demand some lunch, not to mention a little afternoon tea and dinner too. However, Cinderella realised she was still dressed in pyjamas while the rest of her clothes lay festering in the laundry basket. _Something_ had to be done about this.' The blond man very nearly collapsed with laughter, watching the innocent faces of Ururu and Jinta.

'"Fairy-godmother!" the girl screeched, "I know there's one! Give me new clothes! And a taxi!" And of course, the fairy-godmother appeared and dutifully gave her a set of overalls, slippers and a floating cucumber taxi, which Cinderella promptly ordered to the palace before beginning to eat. The fairy-godmother then informs her that she had to leave the palace by midnight or she would get no breakfast.' The two children were beginning to nod hesitantly and Urahara was getting a stitch from trying to hold in his laughter.

'When Cinderella abandoned her half-eaten cucumber-taxi at the palace gates, she gathered her slippers in one hand and made a bolt for the front door, knocking down all in her wake. Once at the table which was piled high with food, she proceeded to eat. From then on, nothing happens until about eleven fifty-nine and forty-three seconds, except that the food had begun to diminish at an alarming rate. Time skip, guys!' Uraha clapped joyously and reposition his hat before continuing.

'As Cinderella realised that it was very close to midnight, she tucked the last bowl of rice under her arm and kicked off her grubby jacket in the process of an ultra-speed _shunpo_. To everyone else, the mad eating girl had vanished into thin air while apparently still eating. At this, the king declared a nationwide search of the owner of the grubby jacket through processes such as DNA matching, fingerprinting, and, of course, questioning of the general public.' By now, both children were getting oddly restless and Jinta had even excaped to the toilet twice. The man figured to wrap up the story real quick.

'Eventually they found Cinderella and deployed her in international eating competitions and sprinting competitions. The end, they lived happily ever after, blablabla, you know the drill. Go to bed, clean the shop, make Yoruichi food, whatever.' He lazily waved his fan around before retreating to the bathroom to have a good cackle.

* * *

A/N: Hoho. I had so much fun writing this. I kinda got the idea when my sister started reading the fruits basket cinderella play out loud and I was utterly reminded of the silly things you could do with fairytales. The next update...may not come that soon. BUT! Thanks for reading! Please take this chapter lightly; it's meant to be silly and so try not to get your pants tied up over the fact that it has almost nothing to do with bleach...


	29. 二十九番

Observation Number 29 - A whole lot has happened ever since the first chapter of Bleach. You mean Ichigo's still fifteen? Exactly how much school has this guy missed?

* * *

Today was one of those days where the moon was most certainly a shocking shade of electric blue.

Kurosaki Ichigo, in all his orange glory, sat in his school seat dressed in school uniform, in school for the sole purpose of education.

Of course, everyone else began buzzing noisily among themselves while the topic of most conversation sat in his seat tolerating the ribbing while simultaneously wondering whether he should have dyed his hair black or not.

'I thought someone said he'd become a school dropout and started a street gang.'

'I heard somewhere else that he was dumped into Boys' Home...'

'His hair is still orange!'

'Do you think onigiri with wasabi and honey inside would taste good?'

'Someone said he'd moved out of town...'

Okay, so this was getting a little out of hand. Lurching upright, Ichigo yelled, 'WRONG! FALSE! YES, YOU GOTTA PROBLEM? NO, THAT'S DISGUSTING! RUBBISH!'

At the back of the classroom, Mizuiro applauded his actions. 'Bravo, bravo, excellent first words,' he mumbled. Keigo then seized the moment and pounced.

'So...Ichigo! Did'ja meet any _hot babes_?'

Before receiving any reply, the classroom door clattered open and someone at the front hollered, 'Sensei! Kurosaki's in school today!'

Adjusting her glasses, the stunned teacher studied her file before finally addressing the class. 'Take a seat. Kurosaki? Judging by this,' she waved an attendance sheet in the air, I'll see you next year. The school will mail your class posting to your address, and you might want to turn up for the year-end examinations.'

* * *

Important stuff lies here. Please try not to skip through it. Snap yourself out of your happy daze, and look here.

Alright, short, I know, not very entertaining either, I know. But there's this pressing issue that is the whole reason I decided to update. Which is actually to express my opinion of Lord Kelvin without actually getting booted off the site.

Essentially, there's this guy out there on FFN under the pen name of Lord Kelvin, and he has come up with this programme called Red Booton or something along those lines. He uses it to scan fictions on FFN and any of them found violating the rules are reported to the FFN admin and after a while, you'll find that some fictions will just fizzle off the cybernet together with their authors.

Such works include M-rated stories masquerading as something a little more innocent, those with a certain amount of basic errors like grammar errors (how much is too much, I have absolutely no idea), stories with undesirable word choice such as calling a rooster a cock and stories that are posted in pure script form without narration.

Granted, stumbling across such stories are incredibly infuriating especially when the summary sounds good only to have your hopes dashed when you take a look inside and find something that should be onstage instead of online. Also, people who know that their usage of the language is weak but go ahead posting their stories without consulting a beta is somewhat off-putting as well. Also, it is against the policy of FFN that all works published must be mostly correct in terms of spelling and grammar. Those who are weak in the language can make the choice to find a beta. Those who write "scripts" if, unable to write a narration, may collaborate with a friend who can then help weave it into a story format. Such problems are slight shortcomings of the author and can be corrected.

True, people should not be uploading first drafts typed at 3am in a state of semi-lucidity simply because their "readers demand an update". Deleting their stories and accounts because of this naïvety is not the way to settle this.

However, immediately reporting someone to the admin because of human error is not the most tactful way to go about this. The first step could be to send the author a PM concerning any issues you have with his/her story. Only if they obnoxiously ignore to make any form of improvement then should they be reported.

Basically, one thing behind this terrible Red Booton scare is the level of the fiction being posted up here. People of this mysterious "Literate Union" are unhappy that such seemingly sub-standard works are being posted onto FFN, thus leading to the impression of users that FFN is a crappy site and that some other website is loads better. Deleting people who fail to meet this certain standard is like filing a bill to kick everyone scoring under 70 per cent in school out. Note that FFN is a site where novice writers and first-timers build up experience and confidence and if you kick them out for failing to meet someone's requirements on their first few tries, where on earth do you think all the good authors are going to come from?

I'm not trying to disagree that there are works out there on this site that could do with lots of easily-obtained improvement, but the way that this Red Booton saga deals with it is just see, slash, kill. It's not fair to dishearten and terrify half the population on this site just because you're feeling like a "grammar Nazi", or someone overly obsessed with incorrect grammar. It's inhumane, ruthless and unforgiving. Please attempt to "purge" the site in a different manner.

I'm sorry if you don't share my views and that I've just wasted all your time reading everything up there.


End file.
